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HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS,  NEW  YORK 


THE  DAUGHTER 
OF  THE  STORAGE 

AND     OTHER     THINGS 
IN    PROSE    AND    VERSE 

W.  D.  HOWELLS 


HARPER   6-   BROTHERS   PUBLISHERS 
NEW   YORK   AND  LONDON 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 


Copyright,  191 5,  1916,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  April,  1916 

D-Q 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 3 

II.  A  PRESENTIMENT 45 

III.  CAPTAIN  DUNLEVY'S  LAST  TRIP 67 

IV.  THE  RETURN  TO  FAVOR 81 

V.  SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 93 

VI.  THE  FACE  AT  THE  WINDOW 107 

VII.  AN  EXPERIENCE 117 

VIII.  THE  BOARDERS 127 

IX.  BREAKFAST  Is  MY  BEST  MEAL 141 

X.  THE  MOTHER-BIRD 151 

XI.  THE  AMIGO 161 

XII.  BLACK  CROSS  FARM 173 

XIII.  THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 185 

XIV.  A  FEAST  OF  REASON 227 

XV.  CITY  AND  COUNTRY  IN  THE  FALL 243 

XVI.  TABLE  TALK 253 

XVII.  THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 269 

XVIII.  SELF-SACRIFICE:   A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 285 

XIX.  THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 319 


333929 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF 
THE  STORAGE 


HTHEY  were  getting  some  of  their  things  out  to 
•••  send  into  the  country,  and  Forsyth  had  left 
his  work  to  help  his  wife  look  them  over  and  decide 
which  to  take  and  which  to  leave.  The  things 
were  mostly  trunks  that  they  had  stored  the  fall 
before;  there  were  some  tables  and  Colonial 
bureaus  inherited  from  his  mother,  and  some  mir 
rors  and  decorative  odds  and  ends,  which  they 
would  not  want  in  the  furnished  house  they  had 
taken  for  the  summer.  There  were  some  canvases 
which  Forsyth  said  he  would  paint  out  and  use 
for  other  subjects,  but  which,  when  he  came  to 
look  at  again,  he  found  really  not  so  bad.  The 
rest,  literally,  was  nothing  but  trunks ;  there  were, 
of  course,  two  or  three  boxes  of  books.  When  they 
had  been  packed  closely  into  the  five-dollar  room, 

3 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

with  the  tables  and  bureaus  and  mirrors  and  can 
vases  and  decorative  odds  and  ends  put  carefully 
on  top,  the  Forsyths  thought  the  effect  very  neat, 
and  laughed  at  themselves  for  being  proud  of  it. 

They  spent  the  winter  in  Paris  planning  for  the 
summer  in  America,  and  now  it  had  come  May,  a 
month  which  in  New  York  is  at  its  best,  and  in 
the  Constitutional  Storage  Safe-Deposit  Ware 
house  is  by  no  means  at  its  worst.  The  Constitu 
tional  Storage  is  no  longer  new,  but  when  the 
Forsyths  were  among  the  first  to  store  there  it 
was  up  to  the  latest  moment  in  the  modern  per 
fections  of  a  safe-deposit  warehouse.  It  was 
strictly  fire-proof;  and  its  long,  white,  brick- walled, 
iron-doored  corridors,  with  their  clean  concrete 
floors,  branching  from  a  central  avenue  to  the  tall 
windows  north  and  south,  offered  perspectives 
sculpturesquely  bare,  or  picturesquely  heaped 
with  arriving  or  departing  household  stuff. 

When  the  Forsyths  went  to  look  at  it  a  nice 
young  fellow  from  the  office  had  gone  with  them; 
running  ahead  and  switching  on  rows  of  electrics 
down  the  corridors,  and  then,  with  a  wire-basketed 
electric  lamp,  which  he  twirled  about  and  held 
aloft  and  alow,  showing  the  dustless,  sweet- 
smelling  spaciousness  of  a  perfect  five-dollar  room. 
He  said  it  would  more  than  hold  their  things; 
and  it  really  held  them. 

4 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

Now,  when  the  same  young  fellow  unlocked  the 
iron  door  and  set  it  wide,  he  said  he  would  get 
them  a  man,  and  he  got  Mrs.  Forsyth  a  gilt  arm 
chair  from  some  furniture  going  into  an  adjoining 
twenty-dollar  room.  She  sat  down  in  it,  and  '  *  Of 
course,"  she  said,  "the  pieces  I  want  will  be  at 
the  very  back  and  the  very  bottom.  Why  don't 
you  get  yourself  a  chair,  too,  Ambrose?  What 
are  you  looking  at?" 

With  his  eyes  on  the  neighboring  furniture  he 
answered,  "Seems  to  be  the  wreck  of  a  million 
aire's  happy  home;  parlor  and  kitchen  utensils 
and  office  furniture  all  in  white  and  gold." 

"Horrors,  yes!"  Mrs.  Forsyth  said,  without 
turning  her  head  from  studying  her  trunks,  as 
if  she  might  divine  their  contents  from  their 
outside. 

"Tata  and  I,"  her  husband  said,  "are  more 
interested  in  the  millionaire's  things."  Tata,  it 
appeared,  was  not  a  dog,  but  a  child;  the  name 
was  not  the  diminutive  of  her  own  name,  which 
was  Charlotte,  but  a  generic  name  for  a  doll,  which 
Tata  had  learned  from  her  Italian  nurse  to  apply 
to  all  little  girls  and  had  got  applied  to  herself 
by  her  father.  She  was  now  at  a  distance  down 
the  corridor,  playing  a  drama  with  the  pieces  of 
millionaire  furniture;  as  they  stretched  away  in 
variety  and  splendor  they  naturally  suggested 

5  ' 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

personages  of  princely  quality,  and  being  touched 
with  her  little  forefinger  tip  were  capable  of  enter 
ing  warmly  into  Tata's  plans  for  them. 

Her  mother  looked  over  her  shoulder  toward 
the  child.  "Come  here,  Tata,"  she  called,  and 
when  Tata,  having  enjoined  some  tall  mirrors  to 
secrecy  with  a  frown  and  a  shake  of  the  head,  ran 
to  her,  Mrs.  Forsyth  had  forgotten  why  she  had 
called  her.  "Oh!"  she  said,  recollecting,  "do  you 
know  which  your  trunk  is,  Tata?  Can  you  show 
mamma?  Can  you  put  your  hand  on  it  ?" 

The  child  promptly  put  her  hand  on  the  end  of  a 
small  box  just  within  her  tiptoe  reach,  and  her 
mother  said,  "I  do  believe  she  knows  everything 
that's  in  it,  Ambrose!  That  trunk  has  got  to  be 
opened  the  very  first  one!" 

The  man  that  the  young  fellow  said  he  would 
send  showed  at  the  far  end  of  the  corridor,  smaller 
than  human,  but  enlarging  himself  to  the  average 
Irish  bulk  as  he  drew  near.  He  was  given  in 
structions  and  obeyed  with  caressing  irony  Mrs. 
Forsyth's  order  to  pull  out  Tata's  trunk  first,  and 
she  found  the  key  in  a  large  tangle  of  keys,  and 
opened  it,  and  had  the  joy  of  seeing  everything 
recognized  by  the  owner :  doll  by  doll,  cook-stove, 
tin  dishes,  small  brooms,  wooden  animals  on  feet 
and  wheels,  birds  of  various  plumage,  a  toy  piano, 
a  dust-pan,  alphabet  blocks,  dog's-eared  linen 

6 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

Mother  Goose  books,  and  the  rest.  Tata  had  been 
allowed  to  put  the  things  away  herself,  and  she 
took  them  out  with  no  apparent  sense  of  the  time 
passed  since  she  saw  them  last.  In  the  changing 
life  of  her  parents  all  times  and  places  were  alike 
to  her.  She  began  to  play  with  the  things  in  the 
storage  corridor  as  if  it  were  yesterday  when  she 
saw  them  last  in  the  flat.  Her  mother  and  father 
left  her  to  them  in  the  distraction  of  their  own 
trunks.  Mrs.  Forsyth  had  these  spread  over  the 
space  toward  the  window  and  their  lids  lifted  and 
tried  to  decide  about  them.  In  the  end  she  had 
changed  the  things  in  them  back  and  forth  till  she 
candidly  owned  that  she  no  longer  knew  where 
anything  at  all  was. 

As  she  raised  herself  for  a  moment's  respite 
from  the  problem  she  saw  at  the  far  end  of  the 
corridor  a  lady  with  two  men,  who  increased  in 
size  like  her  own  man  as  they  approached.  The 
lady  herself  seemed  to  decrease,  though  she  re 
mained  of  a  magnificence  to  match  the  furniture, 
and  looked  like  it  as  to  her  dress  of  white  picked 
out  in  gold  when  she  arrived  at  the  twenty-dollar 
room  next  the  Forsyths'.  In  her  advance  she  had 
been  vividly  played  round  by  a  little  boy,  who 
ran  forward  and  back  and  easily  doubled  the 
length  of  the  corridor  before  he  came  to  a  stand 
and  remained  with  his  brown  eyes  fixed  on  Tata. 

7 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

Tata  herself  had  blue  eyes,  which  now  hovered 
dreamily  above  the  things  in  her  trunk. 

The  two  mothers  began  politely  to  ignore  each 
other.  She  of  the  twenty-dollar  room  directed  the 
men  who  had  come  with  her,  and  in  a  voice  of 
authority  and  appeal  at  once  commanded  and 
consulted  them  in  the  disposition  of  her  belongings. 
At  the  sound  of  the  mixed  tones  Mrs.  Forsyth 
signaled  to  her  husband,  and,  when  he  came  within 
whispering,  murmured:  "Pittsburg,  or  Chicago. 
Did  you  ever  hear  such  a  Mid- Western  accent!" 
She  pretended  to  be  asking  him  about  repacking 
the  trunk  before  her,  but  the  other  woman  was  not 
deceived.  She  was  at  least  aware  of  criticism  in 
the  air  of  her  neighbors,  and  she  put  on  greater 
severity  with  the  workmen.  The  boy  came  up  and 
caught  her  skirt.  "What?"  she  said,  bending 
over.  "No,  certainly  not.  I  haven't  time  to 
attend  to  you.  Go  off  and  play.  Don't  I  tell 
you  no?  Well,  there,  then!  Will  you  get  that 
trunk  out  where  I  can  open  it?  That  small  one 
there,"  she  said  to  one  of  the  men,  while  the  other 
rested  for  both.  She  stooped  to  unlock  the  trunk 
and  flung  up  the  lid.  "  Now  if  you  bother  me  any 
more  I  will  surely — '  But  she  lost  herself  short 
of  the  threat  and  began  again  to  seek  counsel  and 
issue  orders. 

The  boy  fell  upon  the  things  in  the  trunk,  which 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

were  the  things  of  a  boy,  as  those  in  Tata's  trunk 
were  the  things  of  a  girl,  and  to  run  with  them, 
one  after  another,  to  Tata  and  to  pile  them  in  gift 
on  the  floor  beside  her  trunk.  He  did  not  stop 
running  back  and  forth  as  fast  as  his  short,  fat 
legs  could  carry  him  till  he  had  reached  the  bottom 
of  his  box,  chattering  constantly  and  taking  no 
note  of  the  effect  with  Tata.  Then,  as  she  made 
no  response  whatever  to  his  munificence,  he  began 
to  be  abashed  and  to  look  pathetically  from  her  to 
her  father. 

"Oh,  really,  young  man,"  Forsyth  said,  "we 
can't  let  you  impoverish  yourself  at  this  rate. 
What  have  you  said  to  your  benefactor,  Tata? 
What  are  you  going  to  give  him?" 

The  children  did  not  understand  his  large 
words,  but  they  knew  he  was  affectionately  mock 
ing  them. 

"Ambrose,"  Mrs.  Forsyth  said,  "you  mustn't 
let  him." 

"I'm  trying  to  think  how  to  hinder  him,  but  it's 
rather  late,"  Forsyth  answered,  and  then  the 
boy's  mother  joined  in. 

"Indeed,  indeed,  if  you  can,  it's  more  than  I 
can.  You're  just  worrying  the  little  girl,"  she  said 
to  the  boy. 

"Oh  no,  he  isn't,  dear  little  soul,"  Mrs.  Forsyth 
said,  leaving  her  chair  and  going  up  to  the  two 

9 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

children.  She  took  the  boy's  hand  in  hers. 
"What  a  kind  boy!  But  you  know  my  little  girl 
mustn't  take  all  your  playthings.  If  you'll  give 
her  one  she'll  give  you  one,  and  that  will  be 
enough.  You  can  both  play  with  them  all  for 
the  present."  She  referred  her  suggestion  to  the 
boy's  mother,  and  the  two  ladies  met  at  the 
invisible  line  dividing  the  five-dollar  room  from 
the  twenty-dollar  room. 

"Oh  yes,  indeed,"  the  Mid-Westerner  said, 
willing  to  meet  the  New-Yorker  half-way.  ' '  You're 
taking  things  out,  I  see.  I  hardly  know  which 
is  the  worst:  taking  out  or  putting  in." 

"Well,  we  are  just  completing  the  experience," 
Mrs.  Forsyth  said.  "I  shall  be  able  to  say  better 
how  I  feel  in  half  an  hour." 

"You  don't  mean  this  is  the  first  time  youVe 
stored?  I  suppose  we've  been  in  and  out  of 
storage  twenty  times.  Not  in  this  warehouse 
exactly;  we've  never  been  here  before." 

"It  seems  very  nice,"  Mrs.  Forsyth  suggested. 

"They  all  do  at  the  beginning.  I  suppose  if 
we  ever  came  to  the  end  they  would  seem  nicer 
still.  Mr.  Bream's  business  is  always  taking  him 
away"  (it  appeared  almost  instantly  that  he  was 
the  international  inspector  of  a  great  insurance 
company's  agencies  in  Europe  and  South  America), 
"and  when  I  don't  go  with  him  it  seems  easier 

10 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

to  break  up  and  go  into  a  hotel  than  to  go  on 
housekeeping.  I  don't  know  that  it  is,  though," 
she  questioned.  "It's  so  hard  to  know  what  to 
do  with  the  child  in  a  hotel." 

"Yes,  but  he  seems  the  sort  that  you  could 
manage  with  anywhere,"  Mrs.  Forsyth  agreed 
and  disagreed. 

His  mother  looked  at  him  where  he  stood  beam 
ing  upon  Tata  and  again  joyfully  awaiting  some 
effect  with  her.  But  the  child  sat  back  upon  her 
small  heels  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  things  in 
her  trunk  and  made  no  sign  of  having  seen  the 
heaps  of  his  gifts. 

The  Forsyths  had  said  to  each  other  before  this 
that  their  little  girl  was  a  queer  child,  and  now 
they  were  not  so  much  ashamed  of  her  apparent 
selfishness  or  rude  indifference  as  they  thought 
they  were.  They  made  a  joke  of  it  with  the  boy's 
mother,  who  said  she  did  not  believe  Tata  was 
anything  but  shy.  She  said  she  often  told  Mr. 
Bream  that  she  did  wish  Peter — yes,  that  was  his 
name;  she  didn't  like  it  much,  but  it  was  his 
grandfather's;  was  Tata  a  Christian  name?  Oh, 
just  a  pet  name!  Well,  it  was  pretty — could  be 
broken  of  his  ridiculous  habit;  most  children — 
little  boys,  that  was — held  onto  their  things  so. 

Forsyth  would  have  taken  something  from 
Tata  and  given  it  to  Peter;  but  his  wife  would 

ii 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

not  let  him;  and  he  had  to  content  himself  with 
giving  Peter  a  pencil  of  his  own  that  drew  red 
at  one  end  and  blue  at  the  other,  and  that  at 
once  drew  a  blue  boy,  that  looked  like  Peter,  on 
the  pavement.  He  told  Peter  not  to  draw  a  boy 
now,  but  wait  till  he  got  home,  and  then  be  care 
ful  not  to  draw  a  blue  boy  with  the  red  end.  He 
helped  him  put  his  things  back  into  his  trunk, 
and  Peter  seemed  to  enjoy  that,  too. 

Tata,  without  rising  from  her  seat  on  her  heels, 
watched  the  restitution  with  her  dreamy  eyes; 
she  paid  no  attention  to  the  blue  boy  on  the  pave 
ment;  pictures  from  her  father  were  nothing  new 
to  her.  The  mothers  parted  with  expressions  of 
mutual  esteem  in  spite  of  their  difference  of  accent 
and  fortune.  Mrs.  Forsyth  asked  if  she  might 
not  kiss  Peter,  and  did  so;  he  ran  to  his  mother 
and  whispered  to  her;  then  he  ran  back  and 
gave  Tata  so  great  a  hug  that  she  fell  over 
from  it. 

Tata  did  not  cry,  but  continued  as  if  lost  in 
thought  which  she  could  not  break  from,  and  that 
night,  after  she  had  said  her  prayers  with  her 
mother,  her  mother  thought  it  was  time  to  ask 
her:  "Tata,  dear,  why  did  you  act  so  to  that 
boy  to-day?  Why  didn't  you  give  him  some 
thing  of  yours  when  he  brought  you  all  his  things? 
Why  did  you  act  so  oddly?" 

12 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

Tata  said  something  in  a  voice  so  low  that  her 
mother  could  not  make  it  out. 

"What  did  you  say?" 

"I  couldn't  tell  which,"  the  child  still  whis 
pered;  but  now  her  mother's  ear  was  at  her 
lips. 

"How,  which?" 

"To  give  him.  The  more  I  looked,"  and  the 
whisper  became  a  quivering  breath,  "the  more  I 
couldn't  tell  which.  And  I  wanted  to  give  them 
all  to  him,  but  I  couldn't  tell  whether  it  would  be 
right,  because  you  and  papa  gave  them  to  me  for 
birthday  and  Christmas,"  and  the  quivering 
breath  broke  into  a  sobbing  grief,  so  that  the 
mother  had  to  catch  the  child  up  to  her  heart. 

"Dear  little  tender  conscience!"  she  said,  still 
wiping  her  eyes  when  she  told  the  child's  father, 
and  they  fell  into  a  sweet,  serious  talk  about  her 
before  they  slept.  "And  I  was  ashamed  of  her 
before  that  woman!  I  know  she  misjudged  her; 
but  we  ought  to  have  remembered  how  fine  and 
precious  she  is,  and  known  how  she  must  have 
suffered,  trying  to  decide." 

"Yes,  conscience,"  the  father  said.  "And  tem 
perament,  the  temperament  to  which  decision  is 
martyrdom." 

"And  she  will  always  have  to  be  deciding! 
She'll  have  to  decide  for  you,  some  day,  as  I 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

do  now;   you  are  very  undecided,  Ambrose — she 
gets  it  from  you." 


ii 

The  Forsyths  were  afraid  that  Tata  might  want 
to  offer  Peter  some  gift  in  reparation  the  next 
morning,  and  her  father  was  quite  ready,  if  she 
said  so,  to  put  off  their  leaving  town,  and  go  with 
her  to  the  Constitutional  Storage,  which  was  the 
only  address  of  Mrs.  Bream  that  he  knew.  But 
the  child  had  either  forgotten  or  she  was  contented 
with  her  mother's  comforting,  and  no  longer  felt 
remorse. 

One  does  not  store  the  least  of  one's  personal 
or  household  gear  without  giving  a  hostage  to 
storage,  a  pledge  of  allegiance  impossible  to  break. 
No  matter  how  few  things  one  puts  in,  one  never 
takes  everything  out;  one  puts  more  things  in. 
Mrs.  Forsyth  went  to  the  warehouse  with  Tata 
in  the  fall  before  they  sailed  for  another  winter 
in  Paris,  and  added  some  old  bits  she  had  picked 
up  at  farm-houses  in  their  country  drives,  and 
they  filled  the  room  quite  to  the  top.  She  told 
her  husband  how  Tata  had  entered  into  the  spirit 
of  putting  back  her  trunk  of  playthings  with  the 
hope  of  seeing  it  again  in  the  spring;  and  she 
added  that  she  had  now  had  to  take  a  seven-fifty 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

room  without  consulting  him,  or  else  throw  away 
the  things  they  had  brought  home. 

During  the  ten  or  twelve  years  that  followed, 
the  Forsyths  sometimes  spent  a  whole  winter  in 
a  hotel;  sometimes  they  had  a  flat;  sometimes 
they  had  a  separate  dwelling.  If  their  housing  was 
ample,  they  took  almost  everything  out  of  stor 
age;  once  they  got  down  to  a  two-dollar  bin,  and 
it  seemed  as  if  they  really  were  leaving  the  stor 
age  altogether.  Then,  if  they  went  into  a  flat 
that  was  nearly  all  studio,  their  furniture  went 
back  in  a  cataclysmal  wave  to  the  warehouse, 
where  a  ten-dollar  room,  a  twelve-dollar  room, 
would  not  dam  the  overflow. 

Tata,  who  had  now  outgrown  her  pet  name, 
and  was  called  Charlotte  because  her  mother 
felt  she  ought  to  be,  always  went  with  her  to  the 
storage  to  help  look  the  things  over,  to  see  the 
rooms  emptied  down  to  a  few  boxes,  or  replenished 
to  bursting.  In  the  first  years  she  played  about, 
close  to  her  mother;  as  she  grew  older  she  ven 
tured  further,  and  began  to  make  friends  with 
other  little  girls  who  had  come  with  their  mothers. 
It  was  quite  safe  socially  to  be  in  the  Constitu 
tional  Storage;  it  gave  standing;  and  Mrs. 
Forsyth  fearlessly  chanced  acquaintance  with  these 
mothers,  who  would  sometimes  be  there  whole 
long  mornings  or  afternoons,  taking  trunks  out  or 

15 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

putting  them  in.  With  the  trunks  set  into  the 
corridors  and  opened  for  them,  they  would  spend 
the  hours  looking  the  contents  over,  talking  to 
their  neighbors,  or  rapt  in  long  silences  when 
they  hesitated  with  things  held  off  or  up,  and, 
after  gazing  absently  at  them,  putting  them  back 
again.  Sometimes  they  varied  the  process  by 
laying  things  aside  for  sending  home,  and  receipt 
ing  for  them  at  the  office  as  "goods  selected." 

They  were  mostly  hotel  people  or  apartment 
people,  as  Mrs.  Forsyth  oftenest  was  herself,  but 
sometimes  they  were  separate  -  house  people. 
Among  these  there  was  one  family,  not  of  great 
rank  or  wealth,  but  distinguished,  as  lifelong  New- 
Yorkers,  in  a  world  of  comers  and  goers  of  every 
origin.  Mrs.  Forsyth  especially  liked  them  for  a 
certain  quality,  but  what  this  quality  was  she 
could  not  very  well  say.  They  were  a  mother 
with  two  daughters,  not  quite  old  maids,  but  on 
the  way  to  it,  and  there  was  very  intermittently 
the  apparently  bachelor  brother  of  the  girls;  at 
the  office  Mrs.  Forsyth  verified  her  conjecture 
that  he  was  some  sort  of  minister.  One  could 
see  they  were  all  gentlefolks,  though  the  girls 
were  not  of  the  last  cry  of  fashion.  They  were 
very  nice  to  their  mother,  and  you  could  tell  that 
they  must  have  been  coming  with  her  for  years. 

At  this  point  in  her  study  of  them  for  her 
16 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

husband's  amusement  she  realized  that  Charlotte 
had  been  coming  to  the  storage  with  her  nearly 
all  her  life,  and  that  more  and  more  the  child  had 
taken  charge  of  the  uneventual  inspection  of  the 
things.  She  was  shocked  to  think  that  she  had 
let  this  happen,  and  now  she  commanded  her 
husband  to  say  whether  Charlotte  would  grow 
into  a  storage  old  maid  like  those  good  girls. 

Forsyth  said,  Probably  not  before  her  time;  but 
he  allowed  it  was  a  point  to  be  considered. 

Very  well,  then,  Mrs.  Forsyth  said,  the  child 
should  never  go  again;  that  was  all.  She  had 
strongly  confirmed  herself  in  this  resolution  when 
one  day  she  not  only  let  the  child  go  again,  but 
she  let  her  go  alone.  The  child  was  now  between 
seventeen  and  eighteen,  rather  tall,  grave,  pretty, 
with  the  dull  brown  hair  that  goes  so  well  with 
dreaming  blue  eyes,  and  of  a  stiff  grace.  She 
had  not  come  out  yet,  because  she  had  always 
been  out,  handing  cakes  at  her  father's  studio 
teas  long  before  she  could  remember  not  doing  it, 
and  later  pouring  for  her  mother  with  rather  a 
quelling  air  as  she  got  toward  fifteen.  During 
these  years  the  family  had  been  going  and  com 
ing  between  Europe  and  America;  they  did  not 
know  perfectly  why,  except  that  it  was  easier 
than  not. 

More  and  more  there  was  a  peculiarity  in  the 
2  17 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

goods  selected  by  Charlotte  for  sending  home, 
which  her  mother  one  day  noted.  "How  is  it, 
Charlotte,  that  you  always  send  exactly  the 
things  I  want,  and  when  you  get  your  own  things 
here  you  don't  know  whether  they  are  what  you 
wanted  or  not?" 

"Because  I  don't  know  when  I  send  them.  I 
don't  choose  them;  I  can't." 

"But  you  choose  the  right  things  for  me?" 

"No,  I  don't,  mother.  I  just  take  what  comes 
first,  and  you  always  like  it." 

"Now,  that  is  nonsense,  Charlotte.  I  can't 
have  you  telling  me  such  a  thing  as  that.  It's 
an  insult  to  my  intelligence.  Do  you  think  I 
don't  know  my  own  mind?" 

"I  don't  know  my  mind,"  the  girl  said,  so  per 
sistently,  obstinately,  stubbornly,  that  her  mother 
did  not  pursue  the  subject  for  fear  of  worse. 

She  referred  it  to  her  husband,  who  said :  ' '  Per 
haps  it's  like  poets  never  being  able  to  remember 
their  own  poetry.  I've  heard  it's  because  they 
have  several  versions  in  their  minds  when  they 
write  and  can't  remember  which  they've  written. 
Charlotte  has  several  choices  in  her  mind,  and 
can't  choose  between  her  choices." 

"Well,  we  ought  to  have  broken  her  of  her 
indecision.  Some  day  it  will  make  her  very 
unhappy." 

18 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

44  Pretty  hard  to  break  a  person  of  her  tem 
perament,"  Forsyth  suggested. 

"I  know  it!"  his  wife  admitted,  with  a  certain 
pleasure  in  realizing  the  fact.  "I  don't  know 
what  we  shall  do." 


in 

Storage  society  was  almost  wholly  feminine;  in 
rare  instances  there  was  a  man  who  must  have 
been  sent  in  dearth  of  women  or  in  an  hour  of 
their  disability.  Then  the  man  came  hastily, 
with  a  porter,  and  either  pulled  all  the  things 
out  of  the  rooms  so  that  he  could  honestly  say 
he  had  seen  them,  and  that  the  thing  wanted 
was  not  there;  or  else  merely  had  the  doors 
opened,  and  after  a  glance  inside  resolved  to  wait 
till  his  wife,  or  mother,  or  daughter  could  come. 
He  agreed  in  guilty  eagerness  with  the  workmen 
that  this  was  the  only  way. 

The  exception  to  the  general  rule  was  a  young 
man  who  came  one  bright  spring  morning  when  all 
nature  suggested  getting  one's  stuff  out  and  going 
into  the  country,  and  had  the  room  next  the 
Forsyths'  original  five-dollar  room  opened.  As 
it  happened,  Charlotte  was  at  the  moment  visit 
ing  this  room  upon  her  mother's  charge  to  see 
whether  certain  old  scrim  sash-curtains,  which 

19 


THE   DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

they  had  not  needed  for  ages  but  at  last  simply 
must  have,  were  not  lurking  there  in  a  chest  of 
general  curtainings.  The  Forsyths  now  had 
moms  on  other  floors,  but  their  main  room  was 
at  the  end  of  the  corridor  branching  northward 
from  that  where  the  five-dollar  room  was.  Near 
this  main  room  that  nice  New  York  family  had 
their  rooms*  and  Charlotte  bad  begun  the  morning 
in  their  friendly  neighborhood,  going  through  some 
chests  that  might  perhaps  have  the  general  cur 
tainings  In  them  and  fo**  scrim  curtains  among  the 
rest.  It  had  not,  and  she  had  gone  to  what  the 
Porsyths  called  their  old  ancestral  five-dollar 
room,  where  that  New  York  family  continued  to 
project  a  sort  of  wireless  chaperonage  over  her. 
Bat  the  young  man  had  come  with  a  porter,  and, 
with  her  own  porter,  Charlotte  could  not  feel  that 
even  a  wireless  chaperonage  was  needed,  though 
the  young  man  approached  with  the  most  beam 
ing  face  she  thought  she  had  ever  seen,  and 
said  he  hoped  he  should  not  be  in  her  way.  She 
answered  with  a  sort  of  helpless  reverberation 
of  his  glow,  Not  at  all;  she  should  only  be  a 
moment.  She  wanted  to  say  she  hoped  she 
would  not  be  in  his  way,  but  she  saved  herself 
in  time,  while,  with  her  own  eyes  intent  upon 
the  facade  of  her  room  and  her  mind  trying  to 
lose  itself  in  the  question  which  curtain -trunk 

20 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

the  scrims  might  be  in,  she  kept  Hie  sense  of  Ms 

f  "•-.-.:  :he  :::erne5:  eyes  she  ':\:.i  eve:  s-e-er.. 

effulgent  with  good-will  and  apology  and  rever 
ent  admiration.  She  Mnshed  to  think  it  admira 
tion,  though  die  liked  to  think  it  so,  and  she  did 
not  snub  him  when  Hie  young  man  jumpM  about, 
Defecting  his  own  storage,  and  divining  the  right 
moments  for  his  c^Fers  of  help.  She  saw  that  he 
was  a  fitlle  shcHter  tlian  herself  ,  that  he  was  very 
light  and  quick  on  his  feet,  and  had  a  round, 
rr:-,-r.  hue.  :le;,r.  -5h;.ver.  ;.r.i  ;.  r:.::.i  :r:—  . 
head,  dose  shorn,  from  which  In  the  seal  of  his 
a::e:::-:::5  ::  her  he  ::.ii  she!  his  r.r;.--  h.i:  :r.:: 
the  window-sul.  He  fonxied  a  strong  contrast  to 
the  contents  of  his  store-nxxn,  which  was  loll, 
.  c:  :::.\s?:ve  --hi:e  :-. 


gold,  and  very  blond.    He  said  casually  that  it  had 
been  there,  ciff  and  on,  since  long  before  he  could 

.".:    :::c^e    ~  ;ri5    .ir. 


vague,    inexplicable,    deepeaed    in    Charlotte's 
mincL. 

"Motho-,"  she  said,  for  die  had  now  disused 
the  earlier  "mamma**  in  drfeteuoe  to  modem 

usage,  "how  old  was  I  when  we  first  took  that 
five-dollar  mm?' 

She  .isked  :h:s  rue^:-;::  .u":-:r  >he  h.ii  fh;--  :he 
<cr::"  ru.r:.ii::s  she  h.ii  :h  v.:.i  ^:.d  rr;-.:ch:  hrrr.e 
with  her 

21 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

"Why?  I  don't  know.  Two  or  three;  three 
or  four.  I  should  have  to  count  up.  What  makes 
you  ask?" 

"Can  a  person  recollect  what  happened  when 
they  were  three  or  four?" 

"I  should  say  not,  decidedly." 

"Or  recollect  a  face?" 

"Certainly  not." 

"Then  of  course  it  wasn't.  Mother,  do  you 
remember  ever  telling  me  what  the  little  boy  was 
like  who  gave  me  all  his  playthings  and  I  couldn't 
decide  what  to  give  him  back?" 

"What  a  question!  Of  course  not!  He  was 
very  brown  and  funny,  with  the  beamingest  little 
face  in  the  world.  Rather  short  for  his  age,  I 
should  say,  though  I  haven't  the  least  idea  what 
his  age  was." 

"Then  it  was  the  very  same  little  boy!"  Char 
lotte  said. 

"Who  was  the  very  same  little  boy?"  her 
mother  demanded. 

"The  one  that  was  there  to-day;  the  young 
man,  I  mean,"  Charlotte  explained,  and  then  she 
told  what  had  happened  with  a  want  of  fullness 
which  her  mother's  imagination  supplied. 

"Did  he  say  who  he  was?  Is  he  coming  back 
to-morrow  or  this  afternoon?  Did  you  inquire 
who  he  was  or  where?" 

22 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

"What  an  idea,  mother!"  Charlotte  said,  group 
ing  the  several  impossibilities  under  one  head  in 
her  answer. 

' '  You  had  a  perfect  right  to  know,  if  you  thought 
he  was  the  one." 

"But  I  didn't  think  he  was  the  one,  and  I  don't 
know  that  he  is  now;  and  if  he  was,  what  could 
I  do  about  it?" 

"That  is  true,"  Mrs.  Forsyth  owned.  "But 
it's  very  disappointing.  I've  always  felt  as  if 
they  ought  to  know  it  was  your  undecidedness 
and  not  ungenerousness." 

Charlotte  laughed  a  little  forlornly,  but  she 
only  said,  "Really,  mother!" 

Mrs.  Forsyth  was  still  looking  at  the  curtains. 
"Well,  these  are  not  the  scrims  I  wanted.  You 
must  go  back.  I  believe  I  will  go  with  you. 
The  sooner  we  have  it  over  the  better,"  she  added, 
and  she  left  the  undecided  Charlotte  to  decide 
whether  she  meant  the  scrim  curtains  or  the  young 
man's  identity. 

It  was  very  well,  for  one  reason,  that  she  de 
cided  to  go  with  Charlotte  that  afternoon.  The 
New-Yorkers  must  have  completed  the  inspection 
of  their  trunks,  for  they  had  not  come  back.  Their 
failure  to  do  so  was  the  more  important  because 
the  young  man  had  come  back  and  was  actively 
superintending  the  unpacking  of  his  room.  The 

23 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

palatial  furniture  had  all  been  ranged  up  and 
down  the  corridor,  and  as  fast  as  a  trunk  was  got 
out  and  unlocked  he  went  through  it  with  the 
help  of  the  storage-men,  listed  its  contents  in  a 
note-book  with  a  number,  and  then  transferred 
the  number  and  a  synopsis  of  the  record  to  a  tag 
and  fastened  it  to  the  trunk,  which  he  had  put 
back  into  the  room. 

When  the  Forsyths  arrived  with  the  mistaken 
scrim  curtains,  he  interrupted  himself  with  apolo 
gies  for  possibly  being  in  their  way;  and  when 
Mrs.  Forsyth  said  he  was  not  at  all  in  their  way, 
he  got  white-and-gold  arm-chairs  for  her  and 
Charlotte  and  put  them  so  conveniently  near  the 
old  ancestral  room  that  Mrs.  Forsyth  scarcely 
needed  to  move  hand  or  foot  in  letting  Charlotte 
restore  the  wrong  curtains  and  search  the  chests 
for  the  right  ones.  His  politeness  made  way  for 
conversation  and  for  the  almost  instant  exchange 
of  confidences  between  himself  and  Mrs.  Forsyth, 
so  that  Charlotte  was  free  to  enjoy  the  silence 
to  which  they  left  her  in  her  labors. 

"Before  I  say  a  word,"  Mrs.  Forsyth  said, 
after  saying  some  hundreds  in  their  mutual  in 
culpation  and  exculpation,  "I  want  to  ask  some 
thing,  and  I  hope  you  will  excuse  it  to  an  old 
woman's  curiosity  and  not  think  it  rude." 

At  the  words  "old  woman's"  the  young  man 
24 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

gave  a  protesting  "Oh!"  and  at  the  word  "rude" 
he  said,  "Not  at  all." 

"It  is  simply  this:  how  long  have  your  things 
been  here?  I  ask  because  we've  had  this  room 
thirteen  or  fourteen  years,  and  I've  never  seen 
your  room  opened  in  that  whole  time." 

The  young  man  laughed  joyously.  "Because 
it  hasn't  been  opened  in  that  whole  time.  I  was 
a  little  chap  of  three  or  four  bothering  round  here 
when  my  mother  put  the  things  in;  I  believe  it 
was  a  great  frolic  for  me,  but  I'm  afraid  it  wasn't 
for  her.  I've  been  told  that  my  activities  con 
tributed  to  the  confusion  of  the  things  and  the 
things  in  them  that  she's  been  in  ever  since,  and 
I'm  here  now  to  make  what  reparation  I  can  by 
listing  them." 

"She'll  find  it  a  great  blessing,"  Mrs.  Forsyth 
said.  "I  wish  we  had  ours  listed.  I  suppose  you 
remember  it  all  very  vividly.  It  must  have  been 
a  great  occasion  for  you  seeing  the  things  stored 
at  that  age." 

The  young  man  beamed  upon  her.  "Not  so 
great  as  now,  I'm  afraid.  The  fact  is,  I  don't 
remember  anything  about  it.  But  I've  been  told 
that  I  embarrassed  with  my  personal  riches  a 
little  girl  who  was  looking  over  her  doll's  things." 

"Oh,  indeed!"  Mrs.  Forsyth  said,  stiffly,  and 
she  turned  rather  snubbingly  from  him  and  said, 

25 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

coldly,  to  Charlotte:  "I  think  they  are  in  that 
green  trunk.  Have  you  the  key?"  and,  stooping 
as  her  daughter  stooped,  she  whispered,  ''Really!" 
in  condemnation  and  contempt. 

Charlotte  showed  no  signs  of  sharing  either, 
and  Mrs.  Forsyth  could  not  very  well  manage 
them  alone.  So  when  Charlotte  said,  "No,  I 
haven't  the  key,  mother,"  and  the  young  man 
burst  in  with,  "Oh,  do  let  me  try  my  master- 
key;  it  will  unlock  anything  that  isn't  a  Yale," 
Mrs.  Forsyth  sank  back  enthroned  and  the 
trunk  was  thrown  open. 

She  then  forgot  what  she  had  wanted  it  opened 
for.  Charlotte  said,  "They're  not  here,  mother," 
and  her  mother  said,  "No,  I  didn't  suppose  they 
were,"  and  began  to  ask  the  young  man  about 
his  mother.  It  appeared  that  his  father  had  died 
twelve  years  before,  and  since  then  his  mother 
and  he  had  been  nearly  everywhere  except  at 
home,  though  mostly  in  England;  now  they  had 
come  home  to  see  where  they  should  go  next  or 
whether  they  should  stay. 

"That  would  never  suit  my  daughter,"  Mrs. 
Forsyth  lugged  in,  partly  because  the  talk  had 
gone  on  away  from  her  family  as  long  as  she 
could  endure,  and  partly  because  Charlotte's  in 
decision  always  amused  her.  "She  can't  bear 
to  choose." 

26 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

"Really?"  the  young  man  said.  "I  don't 
know  whether  I  like  it  or  not,  but  I  have  had  to 
do  a  lot  of  it.  You  mustn't  think,  though,  that 
I  chose  this  magnificent  furniture.  My  father 
bought  an  Italian  palace  once,  and  as  we  couln't 
live  in  it  or  move  it  we  brought  the  furniture 
here." 

"It  is  magnificent,"  Mrs.  Forsyth  said,  look 
ing  down  the  long  stretches  of  it  and  eying  and 
fingering  her  specific  throne.  "I  wish  my  hus 
band  could  see  it — I  don't  believe  he  remembers 
it  from  fourteen  years  ago.  It  looks — excuse  me ! 
— very  studio." 

"  Is  he  a  painter  ?  Not  Mr.  Forsyth  the  painter  ?" 

"Yes,"  Mrs.  Forsyth  eagerly  admitted,  but 
wondering  how  he  should  know  her  name,  with 
out  reflecting  that  a  score  of  trunk-tags  proclaimed 
it  and  that  she  had  acquired  his  by  like  means. 

1 '  I  like  his  things  so  much, ' '  he  said.  ' '  I  thought 
his  three  portraits  were  the  best  things  in  the 
Salon  last  year." 

"Oh,  you  saw  them?"  Mrs.  Forsyth  laughed 
with  pleasure  and  pride.  "Then,"  as  if  it  neces 
sarily  followed,  "you  must  come  to  us  some 
Sunday  afternoon.  You'll  find  a  number  of  his 
new  portraits  and  some  of  the  subjects;  they 
like  to  see  themselves  framed."  She  tried  for 
a  card  in  her  hand-bag,  but  she  had  none,  and  she 

27 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

said,  "Have  you  one  of  my  cards,  my  dear?" 
Charlotte  had,  and  rendered  it  up  with  a  severity 
lost  upon  her  for  the  moment.  She  held  it  tow 
ard  him.  "It's  Mr.  Peter  Bream?"  she  smiled 
upon  him,  and  he  beamed  back. 

"Did  you  remember  it  from  our  first  meeting?" 

In  their  cab  Mrs.  Forsyth  said,  "I  don't  know 
whether  he's  what  you  call  rather  fresh  or  not, 
Charlotte,  and  I'm  not  sure  that  I've  been  very 
wise.  But  he  is  so  nice,  and  he  looked  so  glad  to 
be  asked." 

Charlotte  did  not  reply  at  once,  and  her  silent 
severity  came  to  the  surface  of  her  mother's  con 
sciousness  so  painfully  that  it  was  rather  a  relief 
to  have  her  explode,  "Mother,  I  will  thank  you 
not  to  discuss  my  temperament  with  people." 

She  gave  Mrs.  Forsyth  her  chance,  and  her 
mother  was  so  happy  in  being  able  to  say,  "I 
won't — your  temper,  my  dear,"  that  she  could  add 
with  sincere  apology:  "I'm  sorry  I  vexed  you, 
and  I  won't  do  it  again." 


IV 

The  next  day  was  Sunday;  Peter  Bream  took 
it  for  some  Sunday,  and  came  to  the  tea  on  Mrs. 
Forsyth's  generalized  invitation.  She  pulled  her 
mouth  down  and  her  eyebrows  up  when  his  card 

28 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

was  brought  in,  but  as  he  followed  hard  she  made 
a  lightning  change  to  a  smile  and  gave  him  a  hand 
of  cordial  welcome.  Charlotte  had  no  choice  but 
to  welcome  him,  too,  and  so  the  matter  was  simple 
for  her.  She  was  pouring,  as  usual,  for  her 
mother,  who  liked  to  eliminate  herself  from  set 
duties  and  walk  round  among  the  actual  portraits 
in  fact  and  in  frame  and  talk  about  them  to  the 
potential  portraits.  Peter,  qualified  by  long  so 
journ  in  England,  at  once  pressed  himself  into  the 
service  of  handing  about  the  curate's  assistant; 
Mrs.  Forsyth  electrically  explained  that  it  was 
one  of  the  first  brought  to  New  York,  and  that 
she  had  got  it  at  the  Stores  in  London  fifteen  years 
before,  and  it  had  often  been  in  the  old  ancestral 
room,  and  was  there  on  top  of  the  trunks  that 
first  day.  She  did  not  recur  to  the  famous  in 
stance  of  Charlotte's  infant  indecision,  and  Peter 
was  safe  from  a  snub  when  he  sat  down  by  the 
girl's  side  and  began  to  make  her  laugh.  At  the 
end,  when  her  mother  asked  Charlotte  what  they 
had  been  laughing  about,  she  could  not  tell;  she 
said  she  did  not  know  they  were  laughing. 

The  next  morning  Mrs.  Forsyth  was  paying  for 
her  Sunday  tea  with  a  Monday  headache,  and 
more  things  must  be  got  out  for  the  country. 
Charlotte  had  again  no  choice  but  to  go  alone 
to  the"  storage,  and  yet  again  no  choice  but  to  be 

29 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

pleasant  to  Peter  when  she  found  him  next  door 
listing  the  contents  of  his  mother's  trunks  and 
tagging  them  as  before.  He  dropped  his  work 
and  wanted  to  help  her.  Suddenly  they  seemed 
strangely  well  acquainted,  and  he  pretended  to 
be  asked  which  pieces  she  should  put  aside  as 
goods  selected,  and  chose  them  for  her.  She  hinted 
that  he  was  shirking  his  own  work;  he  said  it 
was  an  all-summer's  job,  but  he  knew  her  mother 
was  in  a  hurry.  He  found  the  little  old  trunk 
of  her  playthings,  and  got  it  down  and  opened  it 
and  took  out  some  toys  as  goods  selected.  She 
made  him  put  them  back,  but  first  he  catalogued 
everything  in  it  and  synopsized  the  list  on  a  tag 
and  tagged  the  trunk.  He  begged  for  a  broken  doll 
which  he  had  not  listed,  and  Charlotte  had  so  much 
of  her  original  childish  difficulty  in  parting  with 
that  instead  of  something  else  that  she  refused  it. 
It  came  lunch-time,  and  he  invited  her  to  go 
out  to  lunch  with  him;  and  when  she  declined 
with  dignity  he  argued  that  if  they  went  to  the 
Woman's  Exchange  she  would  be  properly  chap 
eroned  by  the  genius  of  the  place;  besides,  it 
was  the  only  place  in  town  where  you  got  real 
strawberry  shortcake.  She  was  ashamed  of  liking 
it  all ;  he  besought  her  to  let  him  carry  her  hand 
bag  for  her,  and,  as  he  already  had  it,  she  could 
not  prevent  him;  she  did  not  know,  really,  how 

30 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

far  she  might  successfully  forbid  him  in  anything. 
At  the  street  door  of  the  apartment-house  they 
found  her  mother  getting  out  of  a  cab,  and  she 
asked  Peter  in  to  lunch ;  so  that  Charlotte  might 
as  well  have  lunched  with  him  at  the  Woman's 
Exchange. 

At  all  storage  warehouses  there  is  a  season  in 
autumn  when  the  corridors  are  heaped  with  the 
incoming  furniture  of  people  who  have  decided 
that  they  cannot  pass  another  winter  in  New 
York  and  are  breaking  up  housekeeping  to  go 
abroad  indefinitely.  But  in  the  spring,  when  the 
Constitutional  Safe-Deposit  offered  ample  space 
for  thoughtful  research,  the  meetings  of  Charlotte 
and  Peter  could  recur  without  more  conscious 
ness  of  the  advance  they  were  making  toward  the 
fated  issue  than  in  so  many  encounters  at  tea 
or  luncheon  or  dinner.  Mrs.  Forsyth  was  insist 
ing  on  rather  a  drastic  overhauling  of  her  stor 
age  that  year.  Some  of  the  things,  by  her  com 
mand,  were  shifted  to  and  fro  between  the  more 
modern  rooms  and  the  old  ancestral  room,  and 
Charlotte  had  to  verify  the  removals.  In  decid 
ing  upon  goods  selected  for  the  country  she  had 
the  help  of  Peter,  and  she  helped  him  by  inter 
posing  some  useful  hesitations  in  the  case  of  things 
he  had  put  aside  from  his  mother's  possessions  to 
be  sold  for  her  by  the  warehouse  people. 

31 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

One  day  he  came  late  and  told  Charlotte  that 
his  mother  had  suddenly  taken  her  passage  for 
England,  and  they  were  sailing  the  next  morning. 
He  said,  as  if  it  logically  followed,  that  he  had 
been  in  love  with  her  from  that  earliest  time 
when  she  would  not  give  him  the  least  of  her 
possessions,  and  now  he  asked  her  if  she  would 
not  promise  him  the  greatest.  She  did  not  like 
what  she  felt  ''rehearsed"  in  his  proposal;  it  was 
not  her  idea  of  a  proposal,  which  ought  to  be 
spontaneous  and  unpremeditated  in  terms;  at 
the  same  time,  she  resented  his  precipitation, 
which  she  could  not  deny  was  inevitable. 

She  perceived  that  they  were  sitting  side  by 
side  on  two  of  those  white-and-gold  thrones,  and 
she  summoned  an  indignation  with  the  absurdity 
in  refusing  him.  She  rose  and  said  that  she  must 
go;  that  she  must  be  going;  that  it  was  quite 
time  for  her  to  go;  and  she  would  not  let  him 
follow  her  to  the  elevator,  as  he  made  some  offer 
of  doing,  but  left  him  standing  among  his  palatial 
furniture  like  a  prince  in  exile. 

By  the  time  she  reached  home  she  had  been 
able  to  decide  that  she  must  tell  her  mother  at 
once.  Her  mother  received  the  fact  of  Peter's 
proposal  with  such  transport  that  she  did  not 
realize  the  fact  of  Charlotte's  refusal.  When  this 
was  connoted  to  her  she  could  scarcely  keep  her 

32 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

temper  within  the  bounds  of  maternal  tenderness. 
She  said  she  would  have  nothing  more  to  do  with 
such  a  girl ;  that  there  was  but  one  such  pearl  as 
Peter  in  the  universe,  and  for  Charlotte  to  throw 
him  away  like  that!  Was  it  because  she  could 
not  decide?  Well,  it  appeared  that  she  could 
decide  wrong  quickly  enough  when  it  came  to  the 
point.  Would  she  leave  it  now  to  her  mother? 

That  Charlotte  would  not  do,  but  what  she  did 
do  was  to  write  a  letter  to  Peter  taking  him  back 
as  much  as  rested  with  her;  but  delaying  so  long 
in  posting  it,  when  it  was  written,  that  it  reached 
him  among  the  letters  sent  on  board  and  sup- 
plementarily  delivered  by  his  room  steward  after 
all  the  others  when  the  ship  had  sailed.  The  best 
Peter  could  do  in  response  was  a  jubilant  Mar- 
conigram  of  unequaled  cost  and  comprehensiveness. 

His  mother  had  meant  to  return  in  the  fall, 
after  her  custom,  to  find  out  whether  she  wished 
to  spend  the  winter  in  New  York  or  not.  Before 
the  date  for  her  sailing  she  fell  sick,  and  Peter 
came  sadly  home  alone  in  the  spring.  Mrs.  Bream's 
death  brought  Mrs.  Forsyth  a  vain  regret;  she 
was  sorry  now  that  she  had  seen  so  little  of 
Mrs.  Bream;  Peter's  affection  for  her  was  beau 
tiful  and  spoke  worlds  for  both  of  them ;  and  they, 
the  Forsyths,  must  do  what  they  could  to  com 
fort  him. 

3  33 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

Charlotte  felt  the  pathos  of  his  case  peculiarly 
when  she  went  to  make  provision  for  goods  se 
lected  for  the  summer  from  the  old  ancestral 
room,  and  found  him  forlorn  among  his  white- 
and-gold  furniture  next  door.  He  complained 
that  he  had  no  association  with  it  except  the  touch 
ing  fact  of  his  mother's  helplessness  with  it,  which 
he  had  now  inherited.  The  contents  of  the 
trunks  were  even  less  intimately  of  his  experience; 
he  had  performed  a  filial  duty  in  listing  their 
contents,  which  long  antedated  him,  and  con 
sisted  mostly  of  palatial  bric-a-brac  and  the  varied 
spoils  of  travel. 

He  cheered  up,  however,  in  proposing  to  her 
that  they  should  buy  a  Castle  in  Spain  and  put 
them  into  it.  The  fancy  pleased  her,  but  visibly 
she  shrank  from  a  step  which  it  involved,  so  that 
he  was,  as  it  were,  forced  to  say,  half  jokingly, 
half  ruefully,  "I  can  imagine  your  not  caring  for 
this  rubbish  or  what  became  of  it,  Charlotte,  but 
what  about  the  owner?" 

"The  owner?"  she  asked,  as  it  were  somnam- 
bulantly. 

1  'Yes.     Marrying  him,  say,  sometime  soon." 

"Oh,  Peter,  I  couldn't."  " 

"Couldn't?  You  know  that's  not  playing  the 
game  exactly." 

"Yes;  but  not — not  right  away?" 
34 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

"Well,  I  don't  know  much  about  it  in  my  own 
case,  but  isn't  it  usual  to  fix  some  approximate 
date?  When  should  you  think ?" 

"Oh,  Peter,  I  can't  think." 

"Will  you  let  me  fix  it?  I  must  go  West  and 
sell  out  and  pull  up,  you  know,  preparatory  to 
never  going  again.  We  can  fix  the  day  now  or 
we  can  fix  it  when  I  come  back." 

"Oh,  when  you  come  back,"  she  entreated  so 
eagerly  that  Peter  said: 

"Charlotte,  let  me  ask. you  one  thing.  Were 
you  ever  sorry  you  wrote  me  that  taking-back 
letter?" 

"Why,  Peter,  you  know  how  I  am.  When  I 
have  decided  something  I  have  undecided  it. 
That's  all." 

From  gay  he  turned  to  grave.  "I  ought  to 
have  thought.  I  haven't  been  fair;  /  haven't 
played  the  game.  I  ought  to  have  given  you 
another  chance;  and  I  haven't,  have  I?" 

"Why,  I  suppose  a  girl  can  always  change," 
Charlotte  said,  suggestively. 

"Yes,  but  you  won't  always  be  a  girl.  I've 
never  asked  you  if  you  wanted  to  change.  I  ask 
you  now.  Do  you?" 

"How  can  I  tell?  Hadn't  we  better  let  it  go 
as  it  is?  Only  not  hurry  about — about — marry 
ing?" 

35 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

"  Certainly  not  hurry  about  marrying.  I've 
wondered  that  a  girl  could  make  up  her  mind  to 
marry  any  given  man.  Haven't  you  ever  wished 
that  you  had  not  made  up  your  mind  about  me?" 

"Hundreds  of  times.  But  I  don't  know  that 
I  meant  anything  by  it." 

He  took  her  hand  from  where  it  lay  in  her  lap 
as  again  she  sat  on  one  of  the  white-and-gold 
thrones  beside  him  and  gently  pressed  it.  "Well, 
then,  let's  play  we  have  never  been  engaged.  I'm 
going  West  to-night  to  settle  things  up  for  good, 
and  I  won't  be  back  for  three  or  four  months, 
and  when  I  come  back  we'll  start  new.  I'll  ask 
you,  and  you  shall  say  yes  or  no  just  as  if  you 
had  never  said  either  before." 

"Peter,  when  you  talk  like  that!"  She  saw  his 
brown,  round  face  dimly  through  her  wet  eyes, 
and  she  wanted  to  hug  him  for  pity  of  him  and 
pride  in  him,  but  she  could  not  decide  to  do  it. 
They  went  out  to  lunch  at  the  Woman's  Exchange, 
and  the  only  regret  Peter  had  was  that  it  was  so 
long  past  the  season  of  strawberry  shortcake,  and 
that  Charlotte  seemed  neither  to  talk  nor  to 
listen;  she  ought  to  have  done  one  or  the  other. 

They  had  left  the  Vaneckens  busy  with  their 
summer  trunks  at  the  far  end  of  the  northward 
corridor,  where  their  wireless  station  had  been 
re-established  for  Charlotte's  advantage,  though 

36 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

she  had  not  thought  of  it  the  whole  short  morn 
ing  long.  When  she  came  back  from  lunch  the 
Vaneckens  were  just  brushing  away  the  crumbs 
of  theirs,  which  the  son  and  brother  seemed  to 
have  brought  in  for  them  in  a  paper  box;  at 
any  rate,  he  was  now  there,  making  believe  to 
help  them. 

Mrs.  Forsyth  had  promised  to  come,  but  she 
came  so  late  in  the  afternoon  that  she  owned  she 
had  been  grudgingly  admitted  at  the  office,  and 
she  was  rather  indignant  about  it.  By  this  time, 
without  having  been  West  for  three  months,  Peter 
had  asked  a  question  which  had  apparently  never 
been  asked  before,  and  Charlotte  had  as  newly 
answered  it.  "And  now,  mother,"  she  said, 
while  Mrs.  Forsyth  passed  from  indignant  to 
exultant,  "I  want  to  be  married  right  away,  be 
fore  Peter  changes  his  mind  about  taking  me  West 
with  him.  Let  us  go  home  at  once.  You  always 
said  I  should  have  a  home  wedding." 

"What  a  ridiculous  idea!"  Mrs.  Forsyth  said, 
more  to  gain  time  than  anything  else.  She  added, 
"Everything  is  at  sixes  and  sevens  in  the  flat. 
There  wouldn't  be  standing-room."  A  sudden 
thought  flashed  upon  her,  which,  because  it  was 
sudden  and  in  keeping  with  her  character,  she 
put  into  tentative  words.  "You're  more  at  home 
here  than  anywhere  else.  You  were  almost  born 

37 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

here.  You've  played  about  here  ever  since  you 
were  a  child.  You  first  met  Peter  here.  He  pro 
posed  to  you  here,  and  you  rejected  him  here. 
He's  proposed  here  again,  and  you've  accepted 
him,  you  say — " 

1  "Mother!"  Charlotte  broke  in  terribly  upon 
her.  "Are  you  suggesting  that  I  should  be  mar 
ried  in  a  storage  warehouse?  Well,  I  haven't 
fallen  quite  so  low  as  that  yet.  If  I  can't  have  a 
home  wedding,  I  will  have  a  church  wedding,  and 
I  will  wait  till  doomsday  for  it  if  necessary." 

"I  don't  know  about  doomsday,"  Mrs.  For- 
syth  said,  "but  as  far  as  to-day  is  concerned, 
it's  too  late  for  a  church  wedding.  Peter,  isn't 
there  something  about  canonical  hours?  And 
isn't  it  past  them?" 

"That's  in  the  Episcopal  Church,"  Peter  said, 
and  then  he  asked,  very  politely,  "Will  you  ex 
cuse  me  for  a  moment?"  and  walked  away  as  if 
he  had  an  idea.  It  was  apparently  to  join  the 
Vaneckens,  who  stood  in  a  group  at  the  end  of 
their  corridor,  watching  the  restoration  of  the 
trunks  which  they  had  been  working  over  the 
whole  day.  He  came  back  with  Mr.  Vanecken 
and  Mr.  Vanecken's  mother.  He  was  smiling 
radiantly,  and  they  amusedly. 

"  It 's  all  right, ' '  he  explained.  ' '  Mr.  Vanecken  is 
a  Presbyterian  minister,  and  he  will  marry  us  now." 

38 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

1  'But  not  here!"  Charlotte  cried,  feeling  herself 
weaken. 

"No,  certainly  not,"  the  dominie  reassured  her. 
"I  know  a  church  in  the  next  block  that  I  can  bor 
row  for  the  occasion .  B  ut  what  about  the  license  ? ' ' 

It  was  in  the  day  before  the  parties  must  £>oth 
make  application  in  person,  and  Peter  took  a 
paper  from  his  breast  pocket.  "I  thought  it 
might  be  needed,  sometime,  and  I  got  it  on  the 
way  up,  this  morning." 

"Oh,  how  thoughtful  of  you,  Peter!"  Mrs. 
Forsyth  moaned  in  admiration  otherwise  inex 
pressible,  and  the  rest  laughed,  even  Charlotte, 
who  laughed  hysterically.  At  the  end  of  the  cor 
ridor  they  met  the  Misses  Vanecken  waiting  for 
them,  unobtrusively  expectant,  and  they  all  went 
down  in  the  elevator  together.  Just  as  they  were 
leaving  the  building,  which  had  the  air  of  hurry 
ing  them  out,  Mrs.  Forsyth  had  an  inspiration. 
"Good  heavens!"  she  exclaimed,  and  then,  in 
deference  to  Mr.  Vanecken,  said,  "Good  gracious, 
I  mean.  My  husband!  Peter,  go  right  into  the 
office  and  telephone  Mr.  Forsyth." 

"Perhaps,"  Mr.  Vanecken  said,  "I  had  better 
go  and  see  about  having  my  friend's  church 
opened,  in  the  meanwhile,  and — " 

"By  all  means!"  Mrs.  Forsyth  said  from  her 
mood  of  universal  approbation. 

39 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

But  Mr.  Vanecken  came  back  looking  rather 
'queer  and  crestfallen.  "I  find  my  friend  has 
gone  into  the  country  for  a  few  days;  and  I 
don't  quite  like  to  get  the  sexton  to  open  the 
church  without  his  authority,  and —  But  New 
York  is  full  of  churches,  and  we  can  easily  find 
another,  with  a  little  delay,  if — " 

He  looked  at  Peter,  who  looked  at  Charlotte, 
who  burst  out  with  unprecedented  determination. 
"No,  we  can't  wait.  I  shall  never  marry  Peter 
if  we  do.  Mother,  you  are  right.  But  must  it 
be  in  the  old  ancestral  five-dollar  room?'* 

They  all  laughed  except  Charlotte,  who  was 
more  like  crying. 

"Certainly  not,"  Mr.  Vanecken  said.  "I've 
no  doubt  the  manager — " 

He  never  seemed  to  end  his  sentences,  and  he 
now  left  this  one  broken  off  while  he  penetrated 
the  railing  which  fenced  in  the  manager  alone 
among  a  group  of  vacated  desks,  frowning  im 
patient.  At  some  murmured  words  from  the 
dominie,  he  shouted,  "What!"  and  then  came  out 
radiantly  smiling,  and  saying,  "Why,  certainly." 
He  knew  all  the  group  as  old  storers  in  the  Con 
stitutional,  and  called  them  each  by  name  as  he 
shook  them  each  by  the  hand.  "Everything  else 
has  happened  here,  and  I  don't  see  why  this 
shouldn't.  Come  right  into  the  reception-room." 

40 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

With  some  paintings  of  biblical  subjects,  un 
claimed  from  the  storage,  on  the  walls,  the  place 
had  a  religious  effect,  and  the  manager  signifi 
cantly  looked  out  of  it  a  lingering  stenographer, 
who  was  standing  before  a  glass  with  two  hat 
pins  crossed  in  her  mouth  preparatory  to  thrust 
ing  them  through  the  straw.  She  withdrew, 
visibly  curious  and  reluctant,  and  then  the  man 
ager  offered  to  withdraw  himself. 

"No,"  Charlotte  said,  surprisingly  initiative  in 
these  junctures,  "I  don't  know  how  it  is  in  Mr. 
Vanecken's  church,  but,  if  father  doesn't  come, 
perhaps  you'll  have  to  give  me  away.  At  any 
rate,  you're  an  old  friend  of  the  family,  and  I 
should  be  hurt  if  you  didn't  stay." 

She  laid  her  hand  on  the  manager's  arm,  and 
just  as  he  had  protestingly  and  politely  consented, 
her  father  arrived  in  a  taxicab,  rather  grumbling 
from  having  been  obliged  to  cut  short  a  sitting. 
When  it  was  all  over,  and  the  Vaneckens  were 
eliminated,  when,  in  fact,  the  Breams  had  joined 
the  Forsyths  at  a  wedding  dinner  which  the  bride's 
father  had  given  them  at  Delmonico's  and  had 
precipitated  themselves  into  a  train  for  Niagara 
("So  banal,"  Mrs.  Forsyth  said,  "but  I  suppose 
they  had  to  go  somewhere,  and  we  went  to  Niagara, 
come  to  think  of  it,  and  it's  on  their  way  West"), 
the  bride's  mother  remained  up  late  talking  it 


THE  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  STORAGE 

all  over.  She  took  credit  to  herself  for  the  whole 
affair,  and  gave  herself  a  great  deal  of  just  praise. 
But  when  she  said,  "I  do  believe,  if  it  hadn't  been 
for  me,  at  the  last,  Charlotte  would  never  have 
made  up  her  mind,"  Forsyth  demurred. 

"I  should  say  Peter  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with 
making  up  her  mind  for  her." 

"Yes,  you  might  say  that.'1 

"And  for  once  in  her  life  Charlotte  seems  to 
have  had  her  mind  ready  for  making  up." 

"Yes,  you  might  say  that,  too.  I  believe  she 
is  going  to  turn  out  a  decided  character,  after  all. 
I  never  saw  anybody  so  determined  not  to  be  mar 
ried  in  a  storage  warehouse." 


A    PRESENTIMENT 


II 

A    PRESENTIMENT 

our  coffee  in  the  Turkish  room  Minver 
was  usually  a  censor  of  our  several  foibles 
rather  than  a  sharer  in  our  philosophic  specula 
tions  and  metaphysical  conjectures.  He  liked  to 
disable  me  as  one  professionally  vowed  to  the 
fabulous,  and  he  had  unfailing  fun  with  the  ro 
mantic  sentimentality  of  Rulledge,  which  was  in 
fact  so  little  in  keeping  with  the  gross  super 
abundance  of  his  person,  his  habitual  gluttony, 
and  his  ridiculous  indolence.  Minver  knew  very 
well  that  Rulledge  was  a  good  fellow  withal,  and 
would  willingly  do  any  kind  action  that  did  not 
seriously  interfere  with  his  comfort,  or  make  too 
heavy  a  draft  upon  his  pocket.  His  self-indul 
gence,  which  was  quite  blameless,  unless  surfeit 
is  a  fault,  was  the  basis  of  an  interest  in  occult 
themes,  which  was  the  means  of  even  higher  di 
version  to  Minver.  He  liked  to  have  Rulledge 
approach  Wanhope  from  this  side,  in  the  invin- 

45 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

cible  persuasion  that  the  psychologist  would  be 
interested^  these  themes  by  the  law  of  his  science, 
though  he  had  been  assured  again  and  again  that 
in  spite  of  its  misleading  name  psychology  did 
not  deal  with  the  soul  as  Rulledge  supposed  the 
soul;  and  Minver's  eyes  lighted  up  with  a  pre 
science  of  uncommon  pleasure  when,  late  one  night, 
after  we  had  vainly  tried  to  hit  it  off  in  talk,  now 
of  this,  now  of  that,  Rulledge  asked  Wanhope, 
abruptly  as  if  it  followed  from  something  be 
fore: 

"Wasn't  there  a  great  deal  more  said  about 
presentiments  forty  or  fifty  years  ago  than  there 
is  now?" 

Wanhope  had  been  lapsing  deeper  and  deeper 
into  the  hollow  of  his  chair;  but  he  now  pulled 
himself  up,  and  turned  quickly  toward  Rulledge. 
"What  made  you  think  of  that?"  he  asked. 

"I  don't  know.     Why?" 

"Because  I  was  thinking  of  it  myself."  He 
glanced  at  me,  and  I  shook  my  head. 

"Well,"  Minver  said,  "if  it  will  leave  Acton 
out  in  the  cold,  I'll  own  that  I  was  thinking  of  it, 
too.  I  was  going  back  in  my  mind,  for  no  reason 
that  I  know  of,  to  my  childhood,  when  I  first 
heard  of  such  a  thing  as  a  presentiment,  and  when 
I  was  afraid  of  having  one.  I  had  the  notion  that 
presentiments  ran  in  the  family." 

46 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

"Why  had  you  that  notion?"  Rulledge  de 
manded. 

"I  don't  know  that  I  proposed  telling,"  the 
painter  said,  giving  himself  to  his  pipe. 

"Perhaps  you  didn't  have  it,"  Rulledge  re 
taliated. 

"Perhaps,"  Minver  assented. 

Wanhope  turned  from  the  personal  aspect  of 
the  matter.  "It's  rather  curious  that  we  should 
all  three  have  had  the  same  thing  in  mind  just 
now;  or,  rather,  it  is  not  very  curious.  Such 
coincidences  are  really  very  common.  Something 
must  have  been  said  at  dinner  which  suggested 
it  to  all  of  us." 

"All  but  Acton,"  Minver  demurred. 

"I  mightn't  have  heard  what  was  said,"  I  ex 
plained.  "I  suppose  the  passing  of  all  that  sort 
of  sub-beliefs  must  date  from  the  general  lapse 
of  faith  in  personal  immortality." 

"Yes,  no  doubt,"  Wanhope  assented.  "It  is 
very  striking  how  sudden  the  lapse  was.  Every 
one  who  experienced  it  in  himself  could  date  it 
to  a  year,  if  not  to  a  day.  The  agnosticism  of 
scientific  men  was  of  course  all  the  time  under 
mining  the  fabric  of  faith,  and  then  it  fell  in 
abruptly,  reaching  one  believer  after  another  as 
fast  as  the  ground  was  taken  wholly  or  partly 
from  under  his  feet.  I  can  remember  how  people 

47 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

once  disputed  whether  there  were  such  beings 
as  guardian  spirits  or  not.  That  minor  question 
was  disposed  of  when  it  was  decided  that  there 
were  no  spirits  at  all." 

"Naturally,"  Minver  said.  "And  the  decay  of 
the  presentiment  must  have  been  hastened  by  the 
failure  of  so  many  presentiments  to  make  good." 

"The  great  majority  of  them  have  failed  to 
make  good,  from  the  beginning  of  time,"  Wan- 
hope  replied. 

"There  are  two  kinds  of  presentiments,"  Rul- 
ledge  suggested,  with  a  philosophic  air.  "The 
true  and  the  untrue." 

"Like  mushrooms,"  Minver  said.  "Only,  the 
true  presentiment  kills,  and  the  true  mushroom 
nourishes.  Talking  of  mushrooms,  they  have  a 
way  in  Switzerland  of  preserving  them  in  walnut 
oil,  and  they  fill  you  with  the  darkest  forebodings, 
after  you've  filled  yourself  with  the  mushrooms. 
There's  some  occult  relation  between  the  two. 
Think  it  out,  Rulledge!" 

Rulledge  ignored  him  in  turning  to  Wanhope. 
"The  trouble  is  how  to  distinguish  the  true  from 
the  untrue  presentiment." 

"It  would  be  interesting,"  Wanhope  began,  but 
Minver  broke  in  upon  him  maliciously. 

"To  know  how  much  the  dyspepsia  of  our 
predecessors  had  to  with  the  prevalence  of  pre- 
48 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

sentimentalism?  I  agree  with  you,  that  a  better 
diet  has  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  decline  of  the 
dark  foreboding  among  us.  What  I  can't  under 
stand  is,  how  a  gross  and  reckless  feeder,  like 
Rulledge  here,  doesn't  go  about  like  ancestral 
voices  prophesying  all  sorts  of  dreadful  things." 

"That's  rather  cheap  talk,  even  for  you,  Min- 
ver,"  Rulledge  said.  "Why  did  you  think  pre 
sentiments  ran  in  your  family?" 

"Well,  there  you  have  me,  Rulledge.  That's 
where  my  theory  fails.  I  can  remember,"  Min- 
ver  continued  soberly,  "the  talk  there  used  to 
be  about  them  among  my  people.  They  were 
serious  people  in  an  unreligious  way,  or  rather 
an  unecclesiastical  way.  They  were  never  spirit 
ualists,  but  I  don't  think  there  was  one  of  them 
who  doubted  that  he  should  live  hereafter;  he 
might  doubt  that  he  was  living  here,  but  there  was 
no  question  of  the  other  thing.  I  must  say  it 
gave  a  dignity  to  their  conversation  which,  when 
they  met,  as  they  were  apt  to  do  at  one  another's 
houses  on  Sunday  nights,  was  not  of  common 
things.  One  of  my  uncles  was  a  merchant,  an 
other  a  doctor;  my  father  was  a  portrait-painter 
by  profession,  and  a  sign-painter  by  practice.  I 
suppose  that's  where  I  got  my  knack,  such  as  it 
is.  The  merchant  was  an  invalid,  rather,  though 
he  kept  about  his  business,  and  our  people  merely 
4  49 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

recognized  him  as  being  out  of  health.  He  was 
what  we  could  call,  for  that  day  and  region — the 
Middle  West  of  the  early  fifties — a  man  of  un 
usual  refinement.  I  suppose  this  was  tempera 
mental  with  him  largely;  but  he  had  cultivated 
tastes,  too.  I  remember  him  as  a  peculiarly  gentle 
person,  with  a  pensive  cast  of  face,  and  the  melan 
choly  accomplishment  of  playing  the  flute." 

"I  wonder  why  nobody  plays  the  flute  nowa 
days,"  I  mused  aloud. 

* '  Yes,  it's  quite  obsolete, ' '  Minver  said.  ' '  They 
only  play  the  flute  in  the  orchestras  now.  I  al 
ways  look  at  the  man  who  plays  it  and  think  of 
my  uncle.  He  used  to  be  very  nice  to  me  as  a 
child;  and  he  was  very  fond  of  my  father,  in  a 
sort  of  filial  way;  my  father  was  so  much  older. 
I  can  remember  my  young  aunt;  and  how  pretty 
she  was  as  she  sat  at  the  piano,  and  sang  and 
played  to  his  fluting.  When  she  looked  forward 
at  the  music,  her  curls  fell  into  her  neck;  they 
wore  curls  then,  grown-up  women;  and  though 
I  don't  think  curls  are  beautiful,  my  aunt's  beauty 
would  have  been  less  without  them;  in  fact,  I 
can't  think  of  her  without  them. 

"She  was  delicate,  too;  they  were  really  a  pair 
of  invalids;  but  she  had  none  of  his  melancholy. 
They  had  had  several  children,  who  died,  one 
after  another,  and  there  was  only  one  left  at  the 

50 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

time  I  am  speaking  of.  I  rather  wonder,  now, 
that  the  thought  of  those  poor  little  ghost-cousins 
didn't  make  me  uncomfortable.  I  was  a  very 
superstitious  boy,  but  I  seem  not  to  have  thought 
of  them.  I  played  with  the  little  girl  who  was 
left,  and  I  liked  going  to  my  uncle's  better  than 
anywhere  else.  I  preferred  going  in  the  daytime 
and  in  the  summer-time.  Then  my  cousin  and  I 
sat  in  a  nook  of  the  garden  and  fought  violets,  as 
we  called  it ;  hooked  the  wry  necks  of  the  flowers 
together  and  twitched  to  see  which  blossom  would 
come  off  first.  She  was  a  sunny  little  thing,  like 
her  mother,  and  she  had  curls,  like  her.  I  can't 
express  the  feeling  I  had  for  my  aunt ;  she  seemed 
the  embodiment  of  a  world  that  was  at  once  very 
proud  and  very  good.  I  suppose  she  dressed 
fashionably,  as  things  went  then  and  there;  and 
her  style  as  well  as  her  beauty  fascinated  me.  I 
would  have  done  anything  to  please  her,  far 
more  than  to  please  my  cousin.  With  her  I  used 
to  squabble,  and  sometimes  sent  her  crying  to 
her  mother.  Then  I  always  ran  off  home,  but 
when  I  sneaked  back,  or  was  sent  for  to  come 
and  play  with  my  cousin,  I  was  not  scolded  for 
my  wickedness. 

"My  uncle  was  more  prosperous  than  his 
brothers;  he  lived  in  a  much  better  house  than 
ours,  and  I  used  to  be  quite  awe-struck  by  its 

51 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

magnificence.  He  went  East,  as  we  said,  twice 
a  year  to  buy  goods,  and  he  had  things  sent  back 
for  his  house  such  as  we  never  saw  elsewhere; 
those  cask-shaped  seats  of  blue  china  for  the 
verandas,  and  bamboo  chairs.  There  were  cane- 
bottom  chairs  in  the  sitting-room,  such  as  we  had 
in  our  best  room;  in  the  parlor  the  large  pieces 
were  of  mahogany  veneer,  upholstered  in  black 
hair-cloth ;  they  held  me  in  awe.  The  piano  filled 
half  the  place;  the  windows  came  down  to  the 
ground,  and  had  Venetian  blinds  and  lace  cur 
tains. 

"We  all  went  in  there  after  the  Sunday  night 
supper,  and  then  the  fathers  and  mothers  were 
apt  to  begin  talking  of  those  occult  things  that 
gave  me  the  creeps.  It  was  after  the  Rochester 
Knockings,  as  they  were  called,  had  been  exposed, 
and  so  had  spread  like  an  infection  everywhere. 
It  was  as  if  people  were  waiting  to  have  the  fraud 
shown  up  in  order  to  believe  in  it." 

"That  sort  of  thing  happens,"  Wanhope  agreed. 
"It's  as  if  the  seeds  of  the  ventilated  imposture 
were  carried  atmospherically  into  the  human 
mind  broadcast  and  a  universal  crop  of  self- 
delusion  sprang  up." 

"At  any  rate,"  Minver  resumed,  "instead  of 
the  gift  being  confined  to  a  few  persons — a  small 
sisterhood  with  detonating  knee-joints — there  were. 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

rappings  in  every  well-regulated  household ;  all  the 
tables  tipped;  people  went  to  sleep  to  the  soft 
patter  of  raps  on  the  headboards  of  their  beds; 
and  girls  who  could  not  spell  were  occupied  in 
delivering  messages  from  Socrates,  Ben  Franklin 
and  Shakespeare.  Besides  the  physical  demon 
strations,  there  were  all  sorts  of  psychical  in 
timations  from  the  world  which  we've  now 
abolished." 

"Not  permanently,  perhaps/'  I  suggested. 

"Well,  that  remains  to  be  seen,"  Minver  said. 
' '  It  was  this  sort  of  thing  which  my  people  valued 
above  the  other.  Perhaps  they  were  exclusive  in 
their  tastes,  and  did  not  care  for  an  occultism 
which  the  crowd  could  share  with  them;  though 
this  is  a  conjecture  too  long  after  the  fact  to  have 
much  value.  As  far  as  I  can  now  remember,  they 
used  to  talk  of  the  double  presence  of  living  per 
sons,  like  their  being  where  they  greatly  wished 
to  be  as  well  as  where  they  really  were;  of  clair 
voyance  ;  of  what  we  call  mind-transference,  now ; 
of  weird  coincidences  of  all  kinds;  of  strange  ex 
periences  of  their  own  and  of  others;  of  the  par 
ticipation  of  animals  in  these  experiences,  like  the 
testimony  of  cats  and  dogs  to  the  presence  of 
invisible  spirits;  of  dreams  that  came  true,  or 
came  near  coming  true;  and,  above  everything, 
of  forebodings  and  presentiments. 

53 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

"I  dare  say  they  didn't  always  talk  of  such 
things,  and  I'm  giving  possibly  a  general  impres 
sion  from  a  single  instance;  everything  remem 
bered  of  childhood  is  as  if  from  large  and  repeated 
occurrence.  But  it  must  have  happened  more 
than  once,  for  I  recall  that  when  it  came  to  pre 
sentiments  my  aunt  broke  it  up,  perhaps  once 
only.  My  cousin  used  to  get  very  sleepy  on  the 
rug  before  the  fire,  and  her  mother  would  carry 
her  off  to  bed,  very  cross  and  impatient  of  being 
kissed  good  night,  while  I  was  left  to  the  brunt  of 
the  occult  alone.  I  could  not  go  with  my  aunt 
and  cousin,  and  I  folded  myself  in  my  mother's 
skirt,  where  I  sat  at  her  feet,  and  listened  in  an 
anguish  of  drowsy  terror.  The  talk  would  pass 
into  my  dreams,  and  the  dreams  would  return 
into  the  talk;  and  I  would  suffer  a  sort  of  double 
nightmare,  waking  and  sleeping." 

"Poor  little  devil!"  Rulledge  broke  out.  "It's 
astonishing  how  people  will  go  on  before  children, 
and  never  think  of  the  misery  they're  making  for 
them." 

"I  believe  my  mother  thought  of  it,"  Minver 
returned,  "but  when  that  sort  of  talk  began,  the 
witchery  of  it  was  probably  too  strong  for  her. 
'It  held  her  like  a  two  years'  child';  I  was  eight 
that  winter.  I  don't  know  how  long  my  suffer 
ing  had  gone  on,  when  my  aunt  came  back  and 

54 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

seemed  to  break  up  the  talk.  It  had  got  to  pre 
sentiments,  and,  whether  they  knew  that  this  was 
forbidden  ground  with  her,  or  whether  she  now 
actually  said  something  about  it,  they  turned  to 
talk  of  other  things.  I'm  not  telling  you  all  this 
from  my  own  memory,  which  deals  with  only  a 
point  or  two.  My  father  and  mother  used  to 
recur  to  it  when  I  was  older,  and  I  am  piecing 
out  my  story  from  their  memories. 

"My  uncle,  with  all  his  temperamental  pensive- 
ness,  was  my  aunt's  stay  and  cheer  in  the  fits  of 
depression  which  she  paid  with  for  her  usual 
gaiety.  But  these  fits  always  began  with  some 
uncommon  depression  of  his — some  effect  of  the 
forebodings  he  was  subject  to.  Her  opposition 
to  that  kind  of  thing  was  purely  unselfish,  but 
certainly  she  dreaded  it  for  him  as  well  as  herself. 
I  suppose  there  was  a  sort  of  conscious  silence  in 
the  others  which  betrayed  them  to  her.  'Well/ 
she  said,  laughing,  'have  you  been  at  it  again? 
That  poor  child  looks  frightened  out  of  his  wits/ 

"They  all  laughed  then,  and  my  father  said, 
hypocritically,  'I  was  just  going  to  ask  Felix 
whether  he  expected  to  start  East  this  week 
or  next.' 

"My  uncle  tried  to  make  light  of  what  was 
always  a  heavy  matter  with  him.  'Well,  yester 
day,'  he  answered,  'I  should  have  said  next  week; 

55 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

but  it's  this  week,  now.  I'm  going  on  Wednes 
day.' 

"'By  stage  or  packet?'  my  father  asked. 

'"Oh,  I  shall  take  the  canal  to  the  lake,  and 
get  the  boat  for  Buffalo  there,'  my  uncle  said. 

"They  went  on  to  speak  of  the  trip  to  New 
York,  and  how  much  easier  it  was  then  than  it 
used  to  be  when  you  had  to  go  by  stage  over  the 
mountains  to  Philadelphia  and  on  by  stage  again. 
Now,  it  seemed,  you  got  the  Erie  Canal  packet 
at  Buffalo  and  the  Hudson  River  steamboat  at 
Albany,  and  reached  New  York  in  four  or  five 
days,  in  great  comfort  without  the  least  fatigue. 
They  had  all  risen  and  my  aunt  had  gone  out 
with  her  sisters-in-law  to  help  them  get  their 
wraps.  When  they  returned,  it  seemed  that  they 
had  been  talking  of  the  journey,  too,  for  she  said 
to  my  mother,  laughing  again,  'Well,  Richard 
may  think  it's  easy;  but  somehow  Felix  never 
expects  to  get  home  alive.' 

"I  don't  think  I  ever  heard  my  uncle  laugh, 
but  I  can  remember  how  he  smiled  at  my  aunt's 
laughing,  as  he  put  his  hand  on  her  shoulder;  I 
thought  it  was  somehow  a  very  sad  smile.  On 
Wednesday  I  was  allowed  to  go  with  my  aunt  and 
cousin  to  see  him  off  on  the  packet,  which  came 
up  from  Cincinnati  early  in  the  morning;  I  had 
Iain  awake  most  of  the  night,  and  then  nearly 

56 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

overslept  myself,  and  then  was  at  the  canal  in 
time.  We  made  a  gay  parting  for  him,  but  when 
the  boat  started,  and  I  was  gloating  on  the  three 
horses  making  up  the  tow-path  at  a  spanking  trot, 
under  the  snaky  spirals  of  the  driver's  smacking 
whip-lash,  I  caught  sight  of  my  uncle  standing  on 
the  deck  and  smiling  that  sad  smile  of  his.  My 
aunt  was  waving  her  handkerchief,  but  when  she 
turned  away  she  put  it  to  her  eyes. 

4 'The  rest  of  the  story,  such  as  it  is,  I  know, 
almost  to  the  very  end,  from  what  I  heard  my 
father  and  mother  say  from  my  uncle's  report  after 
ward.  He  told  them  that,  when  the  boat  started, 
the  stress  to  stay  was  so  strong  upon  him  that 
if  he  had  not  been  ashamed  he  would  have  jumped 
ashore  and  followed  us  home.  He  said  that  he 
could  not  analyze  his  feelings ;  it  was  not  yet  any 
definite  foreboding,  but  simply  a  depression  that 
seemed  to  crush  him  so  that  all  his  movements 
were  leaden,  when  he  turned  at  last,  and  went 
down  to  breakfast  in  the  cabin  below.  The  stress 
did  not  lighten  with  the  little  changes  and  chances 
of  the  voyage  to  the  lake.  He  was  never  much 
given  to  making  acquaintance  with  people,  but 
now  he  found  himself  so  absent-minded  that  he 
was  aware  of  being  sometimes  spoken  to  by 
friendly  strangers  without  replying  until  it  was 
too  late  even  to  apologize.  He  was  not  only 

57 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

steeped  in  this  gloom,  but  he  had  the  constant  dis 
tress  of  the  effort  he  involuntarily  made  to  trace 
it  back  to  some  cause  or  follow  it  forward  to  some 
consequence.  He  kept  trying  at  this,  with  a  mind 
so  tensely  bent  to  the  mere  horror  that  he  could 
not  for  a  moment  strain  away  from  it.  He  would 
very  willingly  have  occupied  himself  with  other 
things,  but  the  anguish  which  the  double  action 
of  his  mind  gave  him  was  such  that  he  could  not 
bear  the  effort;  all  he  could  do  was  to  abandon 
himself  to  his  obsession.  This  would  ease  him 
only  for  a  while,  though,  and  then  he  would  suffer 
the  misery  of  trying  in  vain  to  escape  from  it. 
"He  thought  he  must  be  going  mad,  but  in 
sanity  implied  some  definite  delusion  or  hallucina 
tion,  and,  so  far  as  he  could  make  out,  he  had  none. 
He  was  simply  crushed  by  a  nameless  foreboding. 
Something  dreadful  was  to  happen,  but  this  was 
all  he  felt ;  knowledge  had  no  part  in  his  condition. 
He  could  not  say  whether  he  slept  during  the  two 
nights  that  passed  before  he  reached  Toledo, 
where  he  was  to  take  the  lake  steamer  for  Buffalo. 
He  wished  to  turn  back  again,  but  the  relentless 
pressure  which  had  kept  him  from  turning  back 
at  the  start  was  as  strong  as  ever  with  him.  He 
tried  to  give  his  presentiment  direction  by  talking 
with  the  other  passengers  about  a  recent  accident 
to  a  lake  steamer,  in  which  several  hundred  lives 

58 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

were  lost;  there  had  been  a  collision  in  rough 
weather,  and  one  of  the  boats  had  gone  down  in 
a  few  minutes.  There  was  a  sort  of  relief  in  that, 
but  the  double  action  of  the  mind  brought  the 
same  intolerable  anguish  again,  and  he  settled 
back  for  refuge  under  the  shadow  of  his  im 
penetrable  doom.  This  did  not  lift  till  he  was 
well  on  his  way  from  Albany  to  New  York  by 
the  Hudson  River.  The  canal-boat  voyage  from 
Buffalo  to  Albany  had  been  as  eventless  as  that 
to  Toledo,  and  his  lake  steamer  had  reached 
Buffalo  in  safety,  for  which  it  had  seemed  as  if 
those  lost  in  the  recent  disaster  had  paid. 

"He  tried  to  pierce  his  heavy  cloud  by  argu 
ment  from  the  security  in  which  he  had  traveled 
so  far,  but  the  very  security  had  its  hopelessness. 
If  something  had  happened — some  slight  accident 
— to  interrupt  it,  his  reason,  or  his  unreason, 
might  have  taken  it  for  a  sign  that  the  obscure 
doom,  whatever  it  was,  had  been  averted. 

4 'Up  to  this  time  he  had  not  been  able  to  con 
nect  his  foreboding  with  anything  definite,  and 
he  was  not  afraid  for  himself.  He  was  simply 
without  the  formless  hope  that  helps  us  on  at 
every  step,  through  good  and  bad,  and  it  was  a 
mortal  peril,  which  he  came  through  safely  while 
scores  of  others  were  lost,  that  gave  his  presenti 
ment  direction.  He  had  taken  the  day  boat  from 

59 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

Albany,  and  about  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  the 
boat,  making  way  under  a  head- wind,  took  fire. 
The  pilot  immediately  ran  her  ashore,  and  her 
passengers,  those  that  had  the  courage  for  it, 
ran  aft,  and  began  jumping  from  the  stern,  but 
a  great  many  women  and  children  were  burned. 
My  uncle  was  one  of  the  first  of  those  who  jumped, 
and  he  stood  in  the  water,  trying  to  save  those 
who  came  after  from  drowning;  it  was  not  very 
deep.  Some  of  the  women  lost  courage  for  the 
leap,  and  some  turned  back  into  the  flames,  re 
membering  children  they  had  left  behind.  One 
poor  creature  stood  hesitating  wildly,  and  he 
called  up  to  her  to  jump.  At  last  she  did  so,  al 
most  into  his  arms,  and  then  she  clung  about 
him  as  he  helped  her  ashore.  'Oh/  she  cried  out 
between  her  sobs,  'if  you  have  a  wife  and  children 
at  home,  God  will  take  you  safe  back  to  them; 
you  have  saved  my  life  for  my  husband  and  little 
ones.'  'No,'  he  was  conscious  of  saying,  'I  shall 
never  see  my  wife  again,'  and  now  his  foreboding 
had  the  direction  that  it  had  wanted  before. 

"From  that  on  he  simply  knew  that  he  should 
not  get  home  alive,  and  he  waited  resignedly  for 
the  time  and  form  of  his  disaster.  He  had  a  sort 
of  peace  in  that.  He  went  about  his  business  in 
telligently,  and  from  habit  carefully,  but  it  was 
with  a  mechanical  action  of  the  mind,  something, 

60 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

he  imagined,  like  the  mechanical  action  of  his 
body  in  those  organs  which  do  their  part  without 
bidding  from  the  will.  He  was  only  a  few  days 
in  New  York,  but  in  the  course  of  them  he  got 
several  letters  from  his  wife  telling  him  that  all 
was  going  well  with  her  and  their  daughter.  It 
was  before  the  times  when  you  can  ask  and  answer 
questions  by  telegraph,  and  he  started  back, 
necessarily  without  having  heard  the  latest  news 
from  home. 

"He  made  the  return  trip  in  a  sort  of  daze, 
talking,  reading,  eating,  and  sleeping  in  the  calm 
certainty  of  doom,  and  only  wondering  how  it 
would  be  fulfilled,  and  what  hour  of  the  night 
or  day.  But  it  is  no  use  my  eking  this  out;  I 
heard  it,  as  I  say,  when  I  was  a  child,  and  I  am 
afraid  that  if  I  should  try  to  give  it  with  the  full 
detail  I  should  take  to  inventing  particulars." 
Minver  paused  a  moment,  and  then  he  said:  "But 
there  was  one  thing  that  impressed  itself  indelibly 
on  my  memory.  My  uncle  got  back  perfectly 
safe  and  well." 

"Oh!"  Rulledge  snorted  in  rude  dissatisfaction. 

"What  was  it  impressed  itself  on  your  mem 
ory?"  Wanhope  asked,  with  scientific  detachment 
from  the  story  as  a  story. 

Minver  continued  to  address  Wanhope,  without 
regarding  Rulledge.  "My  uncle  told  my  father 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

that  some  sort  of  psychical  change,  which  he  could 
not  describe,  but  which  he  was  as  conscious  of  as 
if  it  were  physical,  took  place  within  him  as  he 
came  in  sight  of  his  house — " 

"Yes,"  Wanhope  prompted. 

"He  had  driven  down  from  the  canal-packet  in 
the  old  omnibus  which  used  to  meet  passengers 
and  distribute  them  at  their  destinations  in  town. 
All  the  way  to  his  house  he  was  still  under  the 
doom  as  regarded  himself,  but  bewildered  that  he 
should  be  getting  home  safe  and  well,  and  he  was 
refusing  his  escape,  as  it  were,  and  then  suddenly, 
at  the  sight  of  the  familiar  house,  the  change  within 
him  happened.  He  looked  out  of  the  omnibus 
window  and  saw  a  group  of  neighbors  at  his 
gate.  As  he  got  out  of  the  omnibus,  my  father 
took  him  by  the  hand,  as  if  to  hold  him  back  a 
moment.  Then  he  said  to  my  father,  very  quietly, 
4  You  needn't  tell  me:  my  wife  is  dead.' " 

There  was  an  appreciable  pause,  in  which  we 
were  all  silent,  and  then  Rulledge  demanded, 
greedily,  "And  was  she?" 

"Really,  Rulledge!"  I  could  not  help  protesting. 

Minver  asked  him,  almost  compassionately  and 
with  unwonted  gentleness,  as  from  the  mood  in 
which  his  reminiscence  had  left  him:  "You  sus 
pected  a  hoax?  She  had  died  suddenly  the 
night  before  while  she  and  my  cousin  were  getting 

62 


A  PRESENTIMENT 

things  ready  to  welcome  my  uncle  home  in  the 
morning.  I'm  sorry  you're  disappointed,"  he 
added,  getting  back  to  his  irony. 

''Whatever,"  Rulledge  pursued,  "became  of  the 
little  girl?" 

"She  died  rather  young;  a  great  many  years 
ago;  and  my  uncle  soon  after  her." 

Rulledge  went  away  without  saying  anything, 
but  presently  returned  with  the  sandwich  which  he 
had  apparently  gone  for,  while  Wanhope  was  re 
marking  :  ' '  That  want  of  definition  in  the  presenti 
ment  at  first,  and  then  its  determination  in  the  new 
direction  by,  as  it  were,  propinquity — it  is  all  very 
curious.  Possibly  we  shall  some  day  discover  a 
law  in  such  matters." 

Rulledge  said :  * '  How  was  it  your  boyhood  was 
passed  in  the  Middle  West,  Minver?  I  always 
thought  you  were  a  Bostonian." 

"I  was  an  adoptive  Bostonian  for  a  good  while, 
until  I  decided  to  become  a  native  New-Yorker, 
so  that  I  could  always  be  near  to  you,  Rulledge. 
You  can  never  know  what  a  delicate  satisfaction 
you  are." 

Minver  laughed,  and  we  were  severally  restored 
to  the  wonted  relations  which  his  story  had  in 
terrupted. 


CAPTAIN    DUNLEVY'S 
LAST    TRIP 


Ill 

CAPTAIN  DUNLEVY'S  LAST  TRIP 

TT  was  against  the  law,  in  such  case  made  and 

*      provided, 

Of  the  United  States,  but  by  the  good  will  of 
the  pilots 

That  we  would  some  of  us  climb  to  the  pilot 
house  after  our  breakfast 

For  a  morning  smoke,  and  find  ourselves  seats 
on  the  benching 

Under  the  windows,  or  in  the  worn-smooth  arm 
chairs.     The  pilot, 

Which  one  it  was  did  not  matter,  would  tilt  his 
head  round  and  say,  "All  right!" 

When  he  had  seen  who  we  were,  and  begin,  or 
go  on  as  from  stopping 

In  the  midst  of  talk  that  was  leading  up  to  a 
story, 

Just  before  we  came  in,  and  the  story,  begun  or 
beginning, 

Always  began  or  ended  with  some  one,  or  some 
thing  or  other, 

67 


CAPTAIN  DUNLEVY'S  LAST  TRIP 

Having  to  do  with  the  river.     If  one  left  the 

wheel  to  the  other, 
Going  off  watch,  he  would  say  to  his  partner 

standing  behind  him 
With  his  hands  stretched  out  for  the  spokes  that 

were  not  given  up  yet, 
"Captain,  you  can  tell  them  the  thing  I  was 

going  to  tell  them 
Better  than  I  could,   I  reckon,"  and  then  the 

other  would  answer, 
"Well,  I  don't  know  as  I  feel  so  sure  of  that, 

captain,"  and  having 
Recognized  each  other  so  by  that  courtesy  title 

of  captain 
Never  officially  failed  of  without  offense  among 

pilots, 
One  would  subside  into  Jim  and  into  Jerry  the  other. 

It  was  on  these  terms,  at  least,  Captain  Dunn 
relieved  Captain  Davis 

When  we  had  settled  ourselves  one  day  to  listen 
in  comfort, 

After  some  psychological  subtleties  we  had  in 
dulged  in  at  breakfast 

Touching  that  weird  experience  every  one  knows 
when  the  senses 

Juggle  the  points  of  the  compass  out  of  true 
orientation, 


CAPTAIN  DUNLEVY'S  LAST  TRIP 

Changing  the  North  to  the  South,  and  the  East 
to  the  West.     "Why,  Jerry,  what  was  it 

You  was  going  to  tell  them?"     "Oh,  never  you 
mind  what  it  was,  Jim. 

You  tell  them  something  else,"  and  so  Captain 
Davis  submitted, 

While  Captain  Dunn,  with  a  laugh,  got  away 
beyond  reach  of  his  protest. 

Then   Captain   Davis,  with  fitting,  deprecatory 
preamble, 

Launched  himself  on  a  story  that  promised  to  be 
all  a  story 

Could  be  expected  to  be,   when  one  of  those 
women — you  know  them — 

Who  interrupt  on  any  occasion  or  none,  inter 
rupted, 

Pointed  her  hand,  and  asked,  "Oh,  what  is  that 
island  there,  captain?" 

"That  one,  ma'am?"     He  gave  her  the  name, 
and  then  the  woman  persisted, 

"Don't  say  you  know  them  all  by  sight!"     "Yes, 
by  sight  or  by  feeling." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  feeling?"     "Why,  just 
that  by  daylight  we  see  them, 

And  in  the  dark  it's  like  as  if  somehow  we  felt 
them,  I  reckon. 

Every  foot  of  the  channel  and  change  in  it,  wash 
out  and  cave-in, 

69 


CAPTAIN  DUNLEVY'S  LAST  TRIP 

Every  bend  and  turn  of  it,  every  sand-bar  and 

landmark, 
Every  island,  of  course,  we  have  got  to  see  them, 

or  feel  them." 
"But  if  you  don't?"     "But  we've  got  to."     "But 

aren't  you  ever  mistaken?" 
"Never  the  second  time."     "Now,  what  do  you 

mean,  Captain  Davis? 
Never  the  second  time."    ."Well,  let  me  tell  you 

a  story. 
It's  not  the  one  I  begun,  but  that  island  you 

asked  about  yonder 
Puts  me  in  mind  of  it,  happens  to  be  the  place 

where  it  happened, 
Three  years  ago.     I  suppose  no  man  ever  knew 

the  Ohio 
Better  than  Captain  Dunlevy,   if  any  one  else 

knew  it  like  him. 
Man  and  boy  he  had  been  pretty  much  his  whole 

life  on  the  river: 
Cabin-boy  first  on  a  keelboat  before  the  day  of 

the  steamboats, 
Back  in  the  pioneer  times;   and  watchman  then 

on  a  steamboat; 
Then  second  mate,  and  then  mate,  and  then  pilot 

and  captain  and  owner — 
But  he  was  proudest,  I  reckon,  of  being  about 

the  best  pilot 

70 


CAPTAIN  DUNLEVY'S  LAST  TRIP 

On  the  Ohio.     He  knew  it  as  well  as  he  knew  his 

own  Bible, 
And  I  don't  hardly  believe  that  ever  Captain 

Dunlevy 
Let  a  single  day  go  by  without  reading  a  chapter." 


While  the  pilot  went  on  with  his  talk,  and  in 
regular,  rhythmical  motion 

Swayed  from  one  side  to  the  other  before  his 
wheel,  and  we  listened, 

Certain  typical  facts  of  the  picturesque  life  of 
the  river 

Won  their  way  to  our  consciousness  as  without 
help  of  our  senses. 

It  was  along  about  the  beginning  of  March,  but 
already 

In  the  sleepy  sunshine  the  budding  maples  and 
willows, 

Where  they  waded  out  in  the  shallow  wash  of 
the  freshet, 

Showed  the  dull  red  and  the  yellow  green  of  their 
blossoms  and  catkins, 

And  in  their  tops  the  foremost  flocks  of  black 
birds  debated 

As  to  which  they  should  colonize  first.  The  in 
dolent  house-boats 

Loafing  along  the  shore,  sent  up  in  silvery  spirals 


CAPTAIN  DUNLEVY'S  LAST  TRIP 

Out  of  their  kitchen  pipes  the  smoke  of  their 

casual  breakfasts. 
Once  a  wide   tow  of  coal-barges,   loaded  clear 

down  to  the  gunwales, 
Gave  us  the  slack  of  the  current,  with  proper 

formalities  shouted 
By  the  hoarse-throated  stern-wheeler  that  pushed 

the  black  barges  before  her, 
And  as  she  passed  us  poured  a  foamy  cascade 

from  her  paddles. 
Then,  as  a  raft  of  logs,  which  the  spread  of  the 

barges  had  hidden, 
River-wide,    weltered   in    sight,    with    a    sudden 

jump  forward  the  pilot 
Dropped  his  whole  weight  on  the  spokes  of  the 

wheel  just  in  time  to  escape  it. 


"Always  give  those  fellows,"  he  joked,  "all  the 

leeway  they  ask  for; 
Worst  kind  of  thing  on  the  river  you  want  your 

boat  to  run  into. 
Where  had  I  got  about  Captain  Dunlevy?     Oh 

yes,  I  remember. 
Well,  when  the  railroads  began  to  run  away  from 

the  steamboats, 
Taking  the  carrying  trade  in  the  very  edge  of 

the  water, 

72 


CAPTAIN  DUNLEVY'S  LAST  TRIP 

It  was  all  up  with  the  old  flush  times,  and  Cap 
tain  Dunlevy 
Had  to  climb  down  with  the  rest  of  us  pilots  till 

he  was  only 
Captain   the   same   as   any   and   every   pilot   is 

captain, 
Glad  enough,  too,  to  be  getting  his  hundred  and 

twenty-five  dollars 
Through  the  months  of  the  spring  and  fall  while 

navigation  was  open. 

Never  lowered  himself,  though,  a  bit  from  cap 
tain  and  owner, 
Knew  his  rights   and   yours,   and   never  would 

thought  of  allowing 
Any  such  thing  as  a  liberty  from  you  or  taking 

one  with  you. 
I  had  been  his  cub,  and  all  that  I  knew  of  the 

river 
Captain  Dunlevy  had  learnt  me ;  and  if  you  know 

what  the  feeling 
Is  of  a  cub  for  the  pilot  that  learns  him  the  river, 

you'll  trust  me 
When  I  tell  you  I  felt  it  the  highest  kind  of  an 

honor 
Having  him  for  my  partner;    and  when  I  came 

up  to  relieve  him, 
One  day,  here  at  the  wheel,  and  actu'lly  thought 

that  I  found  him 

73 


CAPTAIN  DUNLEVY'S  LAST  TRIP 

Taking  that  island  there  on  the  left,  I  thought 

I  was  crazy. 
No,    I   couldn't   believe   my   senses,    and   yet   I 

couldn't  endure  it. 
Seeing  him   climb   the  spokes  of  the  wheel  to 

warp  the  Kanawha, 
With   the   biggest   trip   of   passengers   ever   she 

carried, 
Round  on  the  bar  at  the  left  that  fairly  stuck 

out  of  the  water. 
Well,  as  I  said,  he  learnt  me  all  that  I  knew  of 

the  river, 
And  was  I  to  learn  him  now  which  side  to  take 

of  an  island 
When  I  knew  he  knew  it  like  his  right  hand  from 

his  left  hand? 
My,  but  I  hated  to  speak!     It  certainly  seemed 

Hke  my  tongue  clove, 
Like  the  Bible  says,  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth! 

But  I  had  to. 
1  Captain,'   I   says,   and  it   seemed  like  another 

person  was  talking, 
'Do  you  usu'lly  take  that  island  there  on  the 

eastward?' 
'Yes,'  he  says,  and  he  laughed,  'and  I  thought  I 

had  learnt  you  to  do  it, 
When  you  was  going  up.'     'But  not  going  down, 

did  you,  captain?' 

74 


CAPTAIN  DUNLEVY'S  LAST  TRIP 

'Down?'     And  he  whirled  at  me,  and,  without 

ever  stopping  his  laughing, 
Turned  as  white  as  a  sheet,  and  his  eyes  fairly 

bulged  from  their  sockets. 
Then  he  whirled  back  again,  and  looked  up  and 

down  on  the  river, 
Like  he  was  hunting  out  the  shape  of  the  shore 

and  the  landmarks. 
Well,  I  suppose  the  thing  has  happened  to  every 

one  sometime, 
When  you  find  the  points  of  the  compass  have 

swapped  with  each  other, 
And  at   the  instant  you're  looking,   the   North 

and  the  South  have  changed  places. 
I  knew  what  was  in  his  mind  as  well  as  Dunlevy 

himself  did. 
Neither  one  of  us  spoke  a  word  for  nearly  a 

minute. 
Then  in  a  kind  of  whisper  he  says,   'Take  the 

wheel,  Captain  Davis!' 
Let   the    spokes  fly,  and  while  I  made  a  jump 

forwards  to  catch  them, 
Staggered  into   that   chair — well,    the   very   one 

you  are  in,  ma'am. 
Set  there  breathing  quick,  and,  when  he  could 

speak,  all  he  said  was, 
'This  is  the  end  of  it  for  me  on  the  river,  Jim 

Davis/ 

75 


CAPTAIN  DUNLEVY'S  LAST  TRIP 

Reached  up  over  his  head  for  his  coat  where  it 

hung  by  that  window, 
Trembled  onto  his  feet,  and  stopped  in  the  door 

there  a  second, 
Stared  in  hard  like  as  if  for  good-by  to  the  things 

he  was  used  to, 
Shut  the  door  behind  him,  and  never  come  back 

again  through  it." 
While  we  were  silent,  not  liking  to  prompt  the 

pilot  with  questions, 
"Well,"  he  said,  at  last,  "it  was  no  use  to  argue. 

We  tried  it, 
In   the  half-hearted   way   that   people   do   that 

don't  mean  it. 
Every  one  was  his  friend  here  on  the  Kanawha, 

and  we  knew 
It  was  the  first  time  he  ever  had  lost  his  bearings, 

but  he  knew, 
In  such  a  thing  as  that,  that  the  first  and  the 

last  are  the  same  time. 
When  we  had  got  through  trying  our  worst  to 

persuade  him,  he  only 
Shook  his  head  and  says,  'I  am  done  for,  boys, 

and  you  know  it,' 
Left  the  boat  at  Wheeling,  and  left  his  life  on 

the  river — 
Left  his  life  on  the  earth,  you  may  cay,  for  I 

don't  call  it  living, 
76 


CAPTAIN  DUNLEVY'S  LAST  TRIP 

Setting  there  homesick  at  home  for  the  wheel 

he  can  never  go  back  to. 
Reads  the  river-news  regular;    knows  just  the 

stage  of  the  water 
Up  and  down  the  whole  way  from  Cincinnati  to 

Pittsburg; 
Follows  every  boat  from  the  time  she  starts  out 

in  the  spring-time 
Till  she  lays  up  in  the  summer,  and  then  again 

in  the  winter; 

Wants  to  talk  all  about  her  and  who  is  her  cap 
tain  and  pilot; 
Then  wants  to  slide  away  to  that  everlastingly 

puzzling 
Thing  that  happened  to  him  that  morning  on  the 

Kanawha 
When  he  lost  his  bearings  and  North  and  South 

had  changed  places — 
No,  I  don't  call  that  living,  whatever  the  rest 

of  you  call  it." 
We  were  silent  again  till  that  woman  spoke  up, 

"And  what  was  it, 
Captain,   that  kept  him  from  going  back  and 

being  a  pilot?" 

"Well,  ma'am,"  after  a  moment  the  pilot  pa 
tiently  answered, 
"I  don't  hardly  believe  that  I  could  explain  it 

exactly." 


THE    RETURN   TO    FAVOR 


IV 
THE   RETURN  TO   FAVOR 

HE  never,  by  any  chance,  quite  kept  his  word, 
though  ^  there  was  a  moment  in   every  case 
when  he  seemed  to  imagine  doing  what  he  said, 
and  he  took  with  mute  patience  the  rakings  which 
the  ladies  gave  him  when  he  disappointed  them. 
Disappointed   is   not   just   the   word,   for   the 
ladies  did  not  really  expect  him  to  do  what  he 
said.     They  pretended  to  believe  him  when  he 
promised,  but  at  the  bottom  of  their  hearts  they 
never  did  or  could.     He  was  gentle-mannered  and 
soft-spoken,  and  when  he  set  his  head  on  one 
side,  and  said  that  a  coat  would  be  ready  on 
Wednesday,  or  a  dress  on  Saturday,  and  repeated 
his  promise  upon  the  same  lady's  expressed  doubt, 
she  would  catch  her  breath  and  say  that  now  she 
absolutely  must  have  it  on  the  day  named,  for 
otherwise  she  would  not  have  a  thing  to  put  on. 
Then  he  would  become  very  grave,  and  his  soft 
tenor  would  deepen  to  a  bass  of  unimpeachable 
6  81 


U 


THE  RETURN  TO  FAVOR 

veracity,   and  he  would  say,    "Sure,   lady,   you 

it." 

he  lady  would  depart  still  doubting  and  slight 
ly  sighing,  and  he  would  turn  to  the  customer 
who  was  waiting  to  have  a  button  sewed  on,  or 
something  like  that,  and  ask  him  softly  what  it 
was  he  could  do  for  him.  If  the  customer  offered 
him  his  appreciation  of  the  case  in  hand,  he 
would  let  his  head  droop  lower,  and  in  a  yet  deep 
er  bass  deplore  the  doubt  of  the  ladies  as  an 
idiosyncrasy  of  their  sex.  He  would  make  the 
customer  feel  that  he  was  a  favorite  customer 
whose  rights  to  a  perfect  fidelity  of  word  and 
deed  must  by  no  means  be  tampered  with,  and 
he  would  have  the  button  sewed  on  or  the  rip 
sewed  up  at  once,  and  refuse  to  charge  anything, 
while  the  customer  waited  in  his  shirt-sleeves  in 
the  small,  stuffy  shop  opening  directly  from  the 
street.  When  he  tolerantly  discussed  the  pe 
culiarities  of  ladies  as  a  sex,  he  would  endure  to 
be  laughed  at,  "for  sufferance  was  the  badge  of 

his  tribe,"  and  possibly  he  rather  liked  it. 
The  favorite  customer  enjoyed  being  there  when 
some  lady  came  back  on  the  appointed  Wednes 
day  or  Saturday,  and  the  tailor  came  soothingly 
forward  and  showed  her  into  the  curtained  alcove 
where  she  was  to  try  on  the  garments,  and  then 
called  into  the  inner  shop  for  them.  (The  shirt- 

82  J 


THE  RETURN  TO  FAVOR 

sleeved  journeyman,  with  his  unbuttoned  waist 
coat-front  all  pins  and  threaded  needles,  would 
appear  in  his  slippers  with  the  things  barely  basted 
together,  and  the  tailor  Would  take  them,  with 
an  airy  courage,  as  if  they  were  perfectly  finished, 
and  go  in  behind  the  curtain  where  the  lady  was 
waiting  in  a  dishabille  which  the  favorite  cus 
tomer,  out  of  reverence  for  the  sex,  forbore  to 
picture  to  himself/^  Then  sounds  of  volcanic  fury 

•*•„ ,  ^~>       •      1—^  t  I!—../ 

wouTcT issue  from  the  alcove.     "Now,  Mr.  Mor 
rison,  you  have  lied  to  me  again,  deliberately  lied. 
Didn't  I  tell  you  I  must  have  the  things  perfectly 
ready  to-day?    You  see  yourself  that  it  will  be 
another  week  before  I  can  have  my  things." 
"A  week?     Oh,  madam!     But  I  assure  you — ' 
''Don't  talk  to  me  any  more!     It's  the  last 
time  I  shall  ever  come  to  you,  but  I  suppose  I 
can't  take  the  work  away  from  you  as  it  is. 
When  shall  I  have  it?" 

"To-morrow.     Yes,  to-morrow  noon.     Sure!" 
"Now  you  know  you  are  always  out  at  noon. 
I  should  think  you  would  be  ashamed." 

"If  it  hadn't  been  for  sickness  in  the  family  I 
would  have  finished  your  dress  with  my  own  hands. 
Sure  I  would.  If  you  come  here  to-morrow  noon 
you  find  your  dress  all  ready  for  you." 

"I  know  I  won't,  but  I  will  come,  and  you'd 
better  have  it  ready." 

83 


THE 'RETURN  TO  FAVOR 

"Oh,  sure." 

The  lady  then  added  some  generalities  of 
opprobrium  with  some  particular  criticisms  of 
the  garments.  Her  voice  sank  into  dispassionate 
murmurs  in  these,  but  it  rose  again  in  her  re 
newed  sense  of  the  wrong  done  her,  and  when 
she  came  from  the  alcove  she  went  out  of  the 
street  door  purple.  She  reopened  it  to  say, 
"Now,  remember!"  before  she  definitely  dis 
appeared. 

"""   ' rRather  a  stormy  session,  Mr.  Morrison,"  the 
customer  said. 

"Something  fierce,"  Mr.  Morrison  sighed. 
But  he  did  not  seem  much  troubled,  and  he  had 
one  way  with  all  his  victims,  no  matter  what 
mood  they  came  or  went  in. 

One  day  the  customer  was  by  when  a  kind 
.creature  timidly  upbraided  him.  "This  is  the 
third  time  you've  disappointed  me,  Mr.  Morri 
son.  I  really  wish  you  wouldn't  promise  me  un 
less  you  mean  to  do  it.  I  don't  think  it's  right 
for  you." 

"Oh,  but  sure,  madam!  The  things  will  be 
done,  sure.  We  had  a  strike  on  us." 

"Well,  I  will  trust  you  once  more,"  the  kind 
creature  said. 

"You  can  depend  on  me,  madam,  sure." 

When   she  was  gone  the  customer  said:    "I 
84 


THE  RETURN  TO  FAVOR 

wonder  you  do  that  sort  of  thing,  Mr.  Morrison. 
You  can't  be  surprised  at  their  behaving  rustily 
with  you  if  you  never  keep  your  word." 

"Why,  I  assure  you  there  are  times  when  I 
don't  know  where  to  look,  the  way  they  go  on. 
It  is  something  awful.  You  ought  to  hear  them 
once.  And  now  they  want  the  wote."  He  re 
arranged  some  pieces  of  tumbled  goods  at  the 
table  where  the  customer  sat,  and  put  together 
the  disheveled  leaves  of  the  fashion-papers  which 
looked  as  if  the  ladies  had  scattered  them  in 
their  rage. 

One  day  the  customer  heard  two  ladies  waiting 
for  their  disappointments  in  the  outer  room  while 
the  tailor  in  the  alcove  was  trying  to  persuade  a 
third  lady  that  positively  her  things  would  be 
sent  home  the  next  day  before  dark.  The  cus 
tomer  had  now  formed  the  habit  of  having  his 
own  clothes  made  by  the  tailor,  and  his  system 
in  avoiding  disappointment  was  very  simple.  In 
the  early  fall  he  ordered  a  spring  suit,  and  in  the 
late  spring  it  was  ready.  He  never  had  any 
difficulty,  but  he  was  curious  to  learn  how  the 
ladies  managed,  and  he  listened  with  all  his  might 
while  these  two  talked.  ^ 

— -*1!  always  wonder  we  keep  coming,"  one  of 
them  said. 

"I'll  tell  you  why,"  the  other  said.     "Because 
85 


THE  RETURN  TO  FAVOR 

he's  cheap,  and  we  get  things  from  a  fourth  to  a 
third  less  than  we  can  get  them  anywhere  else. 
The  quality  is  first  rate,  and  he's  absolutely  honest. 
And,  besides,  he's  a  genius.  The  wretch  has 
touch.  The  things  have  a  style,  a  look,  a  hang! 
Really  it's  something  wonderful.  Sure  it  iss," 
she  ended  in  the  tailor's  accent,  and  then  they 
both  laughed  and  joined  in  a  common  sigh. 

"Well,  I  don't  believe  he  means  to  deceive 
any  one." 

"Oh,  neither  do  I.  I  believe  he  expects  to 
do  everything  he  says.  And  one  can't  help  liking 
him  even  when  he  doesn't." 

rle's  a  good  while  getting  through  with  her," 
the  first  lady  said,  meaning  the  unseen  lady  in 
the  alcove. 

"She'll  be  a  good  while  longer  getting  through 
with  him,  if  he  hasn't  them  ready  the  next  time," 
the  second  lady  said. 

But  the  lady  in  the  alcove  issued  from  it  with 
an  impredicable  smile,  and  the  tailor  came  up 
to  the  others,  and  deferred  to  their  wishes  with 
a  sort  of  voiceless  respect. 

He  gave  the  customer  a  glance  of  good-fellow 
ship,  and  said  to  him,  radiantly:  "Your  things 
all  ready  for  you,  this  morning.  As  soon  as  I — " 

"Oh,  no  hurry,"  the  customer  responded. 

"I  won't  be  a  minute,"  the  tailor  said,  pulling 
86 


I     him  ' 

U— - -i 


THE  RETURN  TO  FAVOR 

the  curtain  of  the  alcove  aside,  and  then  there 
began  those  sounds  of  objurgation  and  expostula 
tion,  although  the  ladies  had  seemed  so  amiable 
before. 

The  customer  wondered  if  they  did  not  all  en 
joy  it;  the  ladies  in  their  patience  under  long 
trial,  and  the  tailor  in  the  pleasure  of  practising 
•upojxjtfBut  perhaps  he  did  believe  in  the 
things  he  promised.  He  might  be  so  much  a 
genius  as  to  have  no  grasp  of  facts;  he  might 
have  thought  that  he  could  actually  do  what 
he  said. 

The  customer's  question  on  these  points  found 
answer  when  one  day  the  tailor  remarked,  as  it 
were  out  of  a  clear  sky,  that  he  had  sold  his 
business;  sold  it  to  the  slippered  journeyman  who 
used  to  come  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  with  his  vest- 
front  full  of  pins  and  needles,  bringing  the  basted 
garments  to  be  tried  on  the  ladies  who  had  been 
promised  them  perfectly  finished. 

"He  will  do  your  clothes  all  right,"  he  explained 
to  the  customer.  "He  is  a  first-rate  cutter  and 
fitter;  he  knows  the  whole  business." 

"But  why — why — "  the  customer  began. 

"I  couldn't  stand  it.  The  way  them  ladies 
would  talk  to  a  person,  when  you  done  your  best 
to  please  them;  it's  something  fierce." 

"Yes,  I  know.  But  I  thought  you  liked  it, 
87 


V-.WU1 

*4^    no  ( 


THE  RETURN  TO  FAVOR 

from  the  way  you  always  promised  them  and 
never  kept  your  word." 

"And  if  I  hadn't  promised  them?"  the  tailor 
returned  with  some  show  of  feeling.  "They 
wanted  me  to  promise  them — they  made  me— 
they  wouldn't  have  gone  away  without  it.  Sure. 
Every  one  wanted  her  things  before  every  one. 
You  had  got  to  think  of  that." 

"But  you  had  to  think  of  what  they  would 
say." 

"Say?  Sometimes  I  thought  they  would  hit- 
me.  One  lady  said  she  had  a  notion  to  slap  me 
once.  It's  no  way  to  talk." 

"But  you  didn't  seem  to  mind  it." 

"I  didn't  mind  it  for  a  good  while.  Then  I 
couldn't  stand  it.  So  I  sold." 

e  shook  his  head  sadly;  but  the  customer  had 
no  comfort  to  offer  him.  He  asked  when  his 
clothes  would  be  done,  and  the  tailor  told  him 
when,  and  then  they  were  not.  The  new  pro 
prietor  tried  them  on,  but  he  would  not  say 
just  when  they  would  be  finished. 

' '  We  have  a  good  deal  of  work  already  for  some 
ladies  that  been  disappointed.  Now  we  try  a  new 
way.  We  tell  people  exactly  what  we  do." 

"Well,  that's  right,"  the  customer  said,  but 
in  his  heart  he  was  not  sure  he  liked  the  new 
way.  -*— ' 

88 


THE  RETURN  TO  FAVOR 

The  day  before  his  clothes  were  promised  he 
dropped  in.  From  the  curtained  alcove  he  heard 
low  murmurs,  the  voice  of  the  new  proprietor 
and  the  voice  of  some  lady  trying  on,  and  being 
severely  bidden  not  to  expect  her  things  at  a  time 
she  suggested.  "No,  madam.  We  got  too  much 
work  on  hand  already.  These  things,  they  will 
not  be  done  before  next  week." 

"I  told  you  to-morrow,"  the  same  voice  said 
to  another  lady,  and  the  new  proprietor  came 
out  with  an  unfinished  coat  in  his  hand. 

"I  know  you  did,  but  I  thought  you  would  be 
better  than  your  word,  and  so  I  came  to-day. 
Well,  then,  to-morrow." 

"Yes,  to-morrow,"  the  new  proprietor  said, 
but  he  did  not  seem  to  have  liked  the  lady's  joke. 
He  did  not  look  happy. 

A  few  weeks  after  that  the  customer  came  for 
some  little  alterations  in  his  new  suit. 

In  the  curtained  alcove  he  heard  the  murmurs 
of  trying  on,  much  cheerfuller  murmurs  than  be 
fore;  the  voice  of  a  lady  lifted  in  gladness,  in 
gaiety,  and  an  incredible  voice  replying,  "Oh, 
sure,  madam." 

Then  the  old  proprietor  came  out  in  his  shirt 
sleeves  and  slippers,  with  his  waistcoat-front  full 
of  pins  and  needles,  just  like  the  new  proprietor 
in  former  days. 

89 


THE  RETURN  TO  FAVOR 

"Why!"  the  customer  exclaimed.  "Have  you 
bought  back?" 

"No.  I'm  just  here  like  a  journeyman  already. 
The  new  man  he  want  me  to  come.  He  don't 
get  along  very  well  with  his  way.  He's  all  right; 
he's  a  good  man  and  a  first-class  tailor.  But," 
arid  the  former  proprietor  looked  down  at  the 
basted  garment  hanging  over  his  arm,  and  picked 
off  an  irrelevant  thread  from  it,  "he  thinks  I  get 
along  better  with  the  ladies." 


SOMEBODY'S    MOTHER 


V 
SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 

r"PHE  figure  of  a  woman  sat  crouched  forward 
•*•  on  one  of  the  lowermost  steps  of  the  brown- 
stone  dwelling  which  was  keeping  a  domestic 
tradition  in  a  street  mostly  gone  to  shops  and 
small  restaurants  and  local  express-offices.  The 
house  was  black  behind  its  closed  shutters,  and 
the  woman  remained  sitting  there  because  no  one 
could  have  come  out  of  its  door  for  a  year  past 
to  hunt  her  away.  The  neighborhood  policeman 
faltered  in  going  by,  and  then  he  kept  on.  The 
three  people  who  came  out  of  the  large,  old- 
fashioned  hotel,  half  a  block  off,  on  their  way 
for  dinner  to  a  French  table  d'hote  which  they  had 
heard  of,  stopped  and  looked  at  the  woman. 
They  were  a  father  and  his  son  and  daughter,  and 
it  was  something  like  a  family  instinct  that  con 
trolled  them,  in  their  pause  before  the  woman 
crouching  on  the  steps. 

It  was  the  early  dusk  of  a  December  day,  and 
the  day  was  very  chilly.     "She  seems  to  be  sick  or 

93 


SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 

something,"  the  father  vaguely  surmised.  "Or 
asleep." 

The  three  looked  at  the  woman,  but  they  did 
nothing  for  a  moment.  They  would  rather  have 
gone  on,  but  they  waited  to  see  if  anything  would 
happen  to  release  them  from  the  spell  that  they 
seemed  to  have  laid  upon  themselves.  They  were 
conditional  New-Yorkers  of  long  sojourn,  and  it 
was  from  no  apparent  motive  that  the  son  wore 
evening  dress,  which  his  unbuttoned  overcoat 
discovered,  and  an  opera-hat.  He  would  not  have 
dressed  so  for  that  problematical  French  table 
d'hote;  probably  he  was  going  on  later  to  some 
society  affair.  He  now  put  in  effect  the  father's 
impulse  to  go  closer  and  look  at  the  woman. 

"She  seems  to  be  asleep,"  he  reported. 

"Shouldn't  you  think  she  would  take  cold? 
She  will  get  her  death  there.  Oughtn't  we  to  do 
something?"  the  daughter  asked,  but  she  left  it 
to  the  father,  and  he  said: 

"Probably  somebody  will  come  by." 

"That  we  could  leave  her  to?"  the  daughter 
pursued. 

"We  could  do  that  without  waiting,"  the  son 
commented. 

"Well,  yes,"  the  father  assented;  but  they  did 
not  go  on.  They  waited,  helplessly,  and  then 
somebody  came  by.  It  was  a  young  girl,  not  very 

94 


SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 

definite  in  the  dusk,  except  that  she  was  unmis 
takably  of  the  working  class;  she  was  simply 
dressed,  though  with  the  New  York  instinct  for 
clothes.  Their  having  stopped  there  seemed  to 
stay  her  involuntarily,  and  after  a  glance  in  the 
direction  of  their  gaze  she  asked  the  daughter: 

''Is  she  sick,  do  you  think?" 

"We  don't  know  what's  the  matter.  But  she 
oughtn't  to  stay  there." 

Something  velvety  in  the  girl's  voice  had  made 
its  racial  quality  sensible  to  the  ear;  as  she  went 
up  to  the  crouching  woman  and  bent  forward 
over  her  and  then  turned  to  them,  a  street  lamp 
threw  its  light  on  her  face,  and  they  saw  that  she 
was  a  light  shade  of  colored  girl. 

"She  seems  to  be  sleeping." 

"Perhaps,"  the  son  began,  "she's  not  quite — " 
But  he  did  not  go  on. 

The  girl  looked  round  at  the  others  and  sug 
gested,  "She  must  be  somebody's  mother!" 

The  others  all  felt  abashed  in  their  several 
sorts  and  degrees,  but  in  their  several  sorts  and 
degrees  they  all  decided  that  there  was  something 
romantic,  sentimental,  theatrical  in  the  girl's 
words,  like  something  out  of  some  cheap  story- 
paper  story. 

The  father  wondered  if  that  kind  of  thing  was 
current  among  that  kind  of  people.  He  had  a 

95 


SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 

sort  of   esthetic  pleasure  in  the  character  and 
condition  expressed  by  the  words. 

"Well,  yes,"  he  said,  "if  she  has  children,  or 
has  had."  The  girl  looked  at  him  uncertainly, 
and  then  he  added,  "But,  of  course — " 

The  son  went  up  to  the  woman  again,  and 
asked:  "Aren't  you  well?  Can  we  do  anything 
for  you?  It  won't  do  to  stay  here,  you  know." 
The  woman  only  made  a  low  murmur,  and  he 
said  to  his  sister,  "Suppose  we  get  her  up." 

His  sister  did  not  come  forward  promptly,  and 
the  colored  giil  said,  "I'll  help  you." 

She  took  one  arm  of  the  woman  and  the  son 
took  the  other,  and  they  lifted  her,  without  her 
connivance,  to  her  feet  and  kept  her  on  them. 
Then  they  walked  her  down  the  steps.  On  the 
level  below  she  showed  taller  than  either  of  them; 
she  was  bundled  up  in  different  incoherent  wraps; 
her  head  was  muffled,  and  she  wore  a  battered 
bonnet  at  an  involuntary  slant. 

"I  don't  know  exactly  what  we  shall  do  with 
her,"  the  son  said. 

"We  ought  to  get  her  home  somehow,"  the 
daughter  said. 

The  father  proposed  nothing,  but  the  colored 
girl  said,  "If  we  keep  walking  her  along,  we'll 
come  to  a  policeman  and  we  can — ' 

A  hoarse  rumble  of  protest  came  from  the 
96 


SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 

muffled  head  of  the  woman,  and  the  girl  put  her 
ear  closer.  ' '  Want  to  go  home  ?  Well,  the  police 
man  will  take  you.  We  don't  know  where  you 
live,  and  we  haven't  the  time." 

The  woman  seemed  to  have  nothing  to  say 
further,  and  they  began  walking  her  westward; 
the  colored  girl  supported  her  on  one  hand,  and 
the  son,  in  his  evening  dress  and  opera-hat,  on 
the  other. 

The  daughter  followed  in  a  vague  anxiety,  but 
the  father  went  along,  enjoying  the  anomaly,  and 
happy  in  his  relish  of  that  phrase,  "She  must  be 
somebody's  mother."  It  now  sounded  to  him 
like  a  catch  from  one  of  those  New  York  songs, 
popular  in  the  order  of  life  where  the  mother 
represents  what  is  best  and  holiest.  He  recalled 
a  vaudeville  ballad  with  the  refrain  of  "A  Boy's 
Best  Friend  is  his  Mother,"  which,  when  he  heard 
it  in  a  vaudeville  theater,  threatened  the  gallery 
floor  under  the  applauding  feet  of  the  frenzied 
audience.  Probably  this  colored  girl  belonged  to 
that  order  of  life;  he  wished  he  could  know  her 
social  circumstance  and  what  her  outlook  on  the 
greater  world  might  be.  She  seemed  a  kind  crea 
ture,  poor  thing,  and  he  respected  her.  "Some 
body's  mother" — he  liked  that. 

They  all  walked  westward,  aimlessly,  except 
that  the  table  d'hote  where  they  had  meant  to  dine 
7  97 


SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 

was  in  that  direction;  they  had  heard  of  it  as  an 
amusingly  harmless  French  place,  and  they  were 
fond  of  such  mild  adventures. 

The  old  woman  contributed  nothing  to  the 
definition  of  their  progress.  She  stumbled  and 
mumbled  along,  but  between  Seventh  Avenue  and 
Eighth  she  stubbornly  arrested  her  guardians. 
"She  says" — the  colored  girl  translated  some  ob 
scure  avowal  across  her  back — "she  says  she 
wants  to  go  home,  and  she  lives  up  in  Harlem. " 

"Oh,  well,  that's  good,"  the  father  said,  with  an 
optimistic  amiability.  "We'd  better  help  walk 
her  across  to  Ninth  Avenue  and  put  her  on  a  car, 
and  tell  the  conductor  where  to  let  her  off." 

He  was  not  helping  walk  her  himself,  but  he 
enjoyed  his  son's  doing  it  in  evening  dress  and 
opera-hat,  with  that  kind  colored  girl  on  the 
other  side  of  the  mother;  the  composition  was 
agreeably  droll.  The  daughter  did  not  like  it, 
and  she  cherished  the  ideal  of  a  passing  policeman 
to  take  the  old  woman  in  charge. 

No  policeman  passed,  though  great  numbers  of 
other  people  met  them  without  apparently  find 
ing  anything  noticeable  in  the  spectacle  which 
their  group  presented.  Among  the  crowds  going 
and  coming  on  the  avenues  which  they  crossed 
scarcely  any  turned  to  look  at  them,  or  was  moved 
by  the  sense  of  anything  odd  in  them. 

98 


SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 

The  old  woman  herself  did  nothing  to  attract 
public  notice  till  they  were  midway  between 
Seventh  and  Eighth  avenues.  She  mumbled 
something  from  time  to  time  which  the  colored 
girl  interpreted  to  the  rest  as  her  continued  wish 
to  go  home.  She  was  now  clearer  about  her 
street  and  number.  The  girl,  as  if  after  question 
of  her  own  generous  spirit,  said  she  did  not  see 
how  she  could  go  with  her;  she  was  expected  at 
home  herself. 

"Oh,  you  won't  have  to  go  with  her;  we'll  just 
put  her  aboard  the  Ninth  Avenue  car,"  the  father 
encouraged  her.  Pie  would  have  encouraged  any 
one;  he  was  enjoying  the  whole  affair. 

At  a  certain  moment,  for  no  apparent  reason, 
the  mother  decided  to  sit  down  on  a  door-step. 
It  proved  to  be  the  door-step  of  a  house  where 
from  time  to  time  colored  people — sometimes  of 
one  sex,  sometimes  of  another — went  in  or  came 
out.  The  door  seemed  to  open  directly  into  a 
large  room  where  dancing  and  dining  were  going 
on  concurrently.  At  a  long  table  colored  people 
sat  eating,  and  behind  their  chairs  on  both  sides 
of  the  room  and  at  the  ends  of  the  table  colored 
couples  were  waltzing. 

The  effect  was  the  more  curious  because,  ex 
cept  for  some  almost  inaudible  music,  the  scene 
passed  in  silence.  Those  who  were  eating  were  not 

99 


SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 

visibly  incommoded  by  those  revolving  at  their 
backs;  the  waltzers  turned  softly  around  and 
around,  untempted  by  the  table  now  before  them, 
now  behind  them.  When  some  of  the  diners  or  dan 
cers  came  out,  they  stumbled  over  the  old  woman 
on  the  door-step  without  minding  or  stopping  to 
inquire.  Those  outside,  when  they  went  in,  fell 
over  her  with  like  equanimity  and  joined  the 
strange  company  within. 
The  father  murmured  to  himself  the  lines, 

"Vast  forms  that  move  fantastically 
To  a  discordant  melody — '" 

with  a  remote  trouble  of  mind  because  the  words 
were  at  once  so  graphic  and  yet  so  imperfectly 
applicable.  The  son  and  daughter  exchanged  a 
silent  wonder  as  long  as  they  could  bear  it;  then 
the  daughter  asked  the  colored  girl: 

"What  is  it?" 

"It's  a  boarding-house,"  the  girl  answered, 
simply. 

"Oh,"  the  daughter  said. 

Sounds  of  more  decided  character  than  before 
now  came  from  the  figure  on  the  door-step. 

"She  seems  to  be  saying  something,"  the 
daughter  suggested  in  general  terms.  "What  is 
she  saying?"  she  asked  the  colored  girl. 

The  girl  stooped  over  and  listened.  Then  she 
answered,  "She's  swearing." 

1 00 


SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 

" Swearing ;  V."r.=.:  about?  Whom  is  she  swear 
ing  at?" 

"At  me,  I  reckon.  She  says,  why  don't  I  take 
her  home." 

"Well,  why  doesn't  she  get  up,  then?" 

"She  says  she  won't." 

"We  can't  cany  her  to  the  car,"  the  daughter 
noted. 

"Oh,  why  not?"  the  father  merrily  demanded. 

The  daughter  turned  to  her  brother.  They  were 
both  very  respectful  to  their  father,  but  the  son 
agreed  with  his  sister  when  she  said:  "Papa  would 
joke  about  anything.  But  this  has  passed  a  joke. 
We  must  get  this  old  thing  up  and  start  her  off." 

Upon  experiment  they  could  not  get  the  old 
thing  up,  even  with  the  help  of  the  kind  colored 
girl.  They  had  to  let  her  be,  and  the  colored  girl 
reported,  after  stooping  over  her  again,  "She  says 
she  can't  walk." 

"  She  walked  here  well  enough ,"  the  daughter  said. 

"Not  very  well,"  the  father  amended. 

His  daughter  did  not  notice  him.  She  said  to 
her  brother:  "Well,  now  you  must  go  and  find 
a  policeman.  It's  strange  none  has  gone  by." 

It  was  also  strange  that  still  their  group  re 
mained  without  attracting  the  notice  of  the 
passers.  Nobody  stopped  to  speak  or  even  stare; 
perhaps  the  phenomena  of  that  boarding-house 


SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 

had  ceased  to  have  surprises  for  the  public  of  the 
neighborhood,  and  they  in  their  momentary  rela 
tion  to  it  would  naturally  be  without  interest. 

The  brother  went  away,  leaving  his  sister  with 
their  father  and  that  kind  colored  creature  in 
charge  of  the  old  woman,  now  more  and  more 
quiescent  on  the  door-step;  she  had  ceased  to 
swear,  or  even  to  speak.  The  brother  came  back 
after  a  time  that  seemed  long,  and  said  that  he 
could  not  find  a  policeman  anywhere,  and  at  the 
same  moment,  as  if  the  officer  had  been  following 
at  his  heels,  a  policeman  crossed  the  street  from 
just  behind  him. 

The  daughter  ran  after  him,  and  asked  if  he 
would  not  come  and  look  at  the  old  woman  who 
had  so  steadfastly  remained  in  their  charge,  and 
she  rapidly  explained. 

"Sure,  lady,"  the  policeman  said,  and  he 
turned  from  crossing  the  street  and  went  up  to 
the  old  woman.  He  laid  his  hand  on  her  shoul 
der,  and  his  touch  seemed  magical.  "What's  the 
matter?  Can't  you  stand  up?"  She  stood  up 
as  if  at  something  familiar  in  the  voice  of  au 
thority.  "Where  do  you  live?"  She  gave  an 
address  altogether  different  from  that  she  had 
given  before — a  place  on  the  next  avenue,  within 
a  block  or  two.  "You'd  better  go  home.  You 
can  walk,  can't  you?" 

102 


SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 

"I  can  walk  well  enough,"  she  answered  in  a 
tone  of  vexation,  and  she  made  her  word  good 
by  walking  quite  actively  away  in  the  direction 
she  had  given. 

The  kind  colored  girl  became  a  part  of  the 
prevalent  dark  after  refusing  the  thanks  of  the 
others.  The  daughter  then  fervently  offered  them 
to  the  policeman. 

"That's  all  right,  lady,"  he  said,  and  the  in 
cident  had  closed  except  for  her  emotion  at  seeing 
him  enter  a  police-station  precisely  across  the 
street,  where  they  could  have  got  a  dozen  police 
men  in  a  moment. 

"Well,"  the  father  said,  "we  might  as  well  go 
to  our  French  table  d'hote  now." 

"Oh,"  the  son  said,  as  if  that  reminded  him, 
"the  place  seems  to  be  shut." 

"Well,  then,  we  might  as  well  go  back  to  the 
hotel,"  the  father  decided.  "I  dare  say  we  shall 
do  quite  as  well  there." 

On  the  way  the  young  people  laughed  over  the 
affair  and  their  escape  from  it,  especially  at  the 
strange  appearance  and  disappearance  of  the  kind 
colored  girl,  with  her  tag  of  sentiment,  and  at  the 
instant  compliance  of  the  old  woman  with  the 
suggestion  of  the  policeman. 

The  father  followed,  turning  the  matter  over 
in  his  mind.  Did  mere  motherhood  hallow  that 

103 


SOMEBODY'S  MOTHER 

old  thing  to  the  colored  girl  and  her  sort  and 
condition?  Was  there  a  superstition  of  mother 
hood  among  such  people  which  would  endear  this 
disreputable  old  thing  to  their  affection  and  rev 
erence?  Did  such  people  hold  mothers  in  ten 
derer  regard  than  people  of  larger  means  ?  Would 
a  mother  in  distress  or  merely  embarrassment 
instantly  appeal  to  their  better  nature  as  a  case 
of  want  or  sickness  in  the  neighborhood  always 
appealed  to  their  compassion  ?  Would  her  family 
now  welcome  the  old  thing  home  from  her  aberra 
tion  more  fondly  than  the  friends  of  one  who  had 
arrived  in  a  carriage  among  them  in  a  good  street  ? 
But,  after  all,  how  little  one  knew  of  other  people! 
How  little  one  knew  of  one  self,  for  that  matter ! 
How  next  to  nothing  one  knew  of  Somebody's 
Mother!  It  did  not  necessarily  follow  from  any 
thing  they  knew  of  her  that  she  was  a  mother  at 
all.  Her  motherhood  might  be  the  mere  figment 
of  that  kind  colored  girl's  emotional  fancy.  She 
might  be  Nobody's  Mother. 

When  it  came  to  this  the  father  laughed,  too. 
Why,  anyhow,  were  mothers  more  sacred  than 
fathers?  If  they  had  found  an  old  man  in  that 
old  woman's  condition  on  those  steps,  would  that 
kind  colored  girl  have  appealed  to  them  in  his 
behalf  as  Somebody's  Father? 


THE   FACE  AT  THE  WINDOW 


VI 
THE  FACE  AT  THE  WINDOW 

HE  had  gone  down  at  Christmas,  where  our 
host 

Had  opened  up  his  house  on  the  Maine  coast, 
For  the  week's  holidays,  and  we  were  all, 
On  Christmas  night,  sitting  in  the  great  hall, 
About  the  corner  fireplace,  while  we  told 
Stories  like  those  that  people,  young  and  old, 
Have  told  at  Christmas  firesides  from  the  first, 
Till   one   who   crouched   upon   the   hearth,    and 

nursed 

His  knees  in  his  claspt  arms,  threw  back  his  head, 
And  fixed  our  host  with  laughing  eyes,  and  said, 
"This  is  so  good,  here — with  your  hickory  logs 
Blazing  like  natural-gas  ones  on  the  dogs, 
And  sending  out  their  flicker  on  the  wall 
And  rafters  of  your  mock-baronial  hall, 
All  in  fumed-oak,  and  on  your  polished  floor, 
And  the  steel-studded  panels  of  your  door— 
I  think  you  owe  the  general  make-believe 
Some  sort  of  story  that  will  somehow  give 

107 


THE  FACE  AT  THE  WINDOW 

A  more  ideal  completeness  to  our  case, 

And  make  each  several  listener  in  his  place — 

Or  hers — sit  up,  with  a  real  goose-flesh  creeping 

All  over  him — or  her — in  proper  keeping 

With  the  locality  and  hour  and  mood. 

Come!"    And   amid   the   cries   of    "Yes!"    and 

"Good!" 

Our  host  laughed  back;   then,  with  a  serious  air, 
Looked  around  him  on  our  hemicycle,  where 
He  sat  midway  of  it.     "Why,"  he  began, 
But  interrupted  by  the  other  man, 
He  paused  for  him  to  say:    "Nothing  remote, 
But  something  with  the  actual  Yankee  note 
Of  here  and  now  in  it!"     "I'll  do  my  best," 
Our  host  replied,  "to  satisfy  a  guest. 
What  do  you  say  to  Barberry  Cove?    And  would 
Five  years  be  too  long  past  ?"     "  No,  both  are  good. 
Go  on!"     "You  noticed  that  big  house  to-day 
Close  to  the  water,  and  the  sloop  that  lay, 
Stripped  for  the  winter,  there,  beside  the  pier? 
Well,  there  she  has  lain  just  so,  year  after  year; 
And  she  will  never  leave  her  pier  again; 
But  once,  each  spring  she  sailed  in  sun  or  rain, 
For  Bay  Chaleur — or  Bay  Shaloor,  as  they 
Like  better  to  pronounce  it  down  this  way." 


Cl 


I  like  Shaloor  myself  rather  the  best. 
But  go  ahead,"  said  the  exacting  guest. 

108 


THE  FACE  AT  THE  WINDOW 

And  with  a  glance  around  at  us  that  said, 
"Don't  let  me  bore  you!"  our  host  went  ahead. 

"Captain  Gilroy  built  the  big  house,  and  he 
Still  lives  there  with  his  aging  family. 
He  built  the  sloop,  and  when  he  used  to  come 
Back   from   the   Banks  he  made   her  more  his 

home, 

With  his  two  boys,  than  the  big  house.     The  two 
Counted  with  him  a  good  half  of  her  crew, 
Until  it  happened,  on  the  Banks,  one  day 
The  oldest  boy  got  in  a  steamer's  way, 
And  went  down  in  his  dory.     In  the  fall 
The  others  came  without  him.     That  was  all 
That  showed  in  either  one  of  them  except 
That  now  the  father  and  the  brother  slept 
Ashore,   and  not   on  board.     When   the   spring 

came 

They  sailed  for  the  old  fishing-ground  the  same 
As  ever.     Yet,  not  quite  the  same.     The  brother, 
If  you  believed  what  folks  say,  kissed  his  mother 
Good-by  in  going;    and  by  general  rumor, 
The  father,  so  far  yielding  as  to  humor 
His    daughters'    weakness,    rubbed    his    stubbly 

cheek 

Against  their  lips.     Neither  of  them  would  speak, 
But  the  dumb  passion  of  their  love  and  grief 
In  so  much  show  at  parting  found  relief. 

109 


THE  FACE  AT  THE  WINDOW 

"The  weeks  passed  and  the  months.     Some 
times  they  heard 

At  home,  by  letter,  from  the  sloop,  or  word 
Of  hearsay  from  the  fleet.     But  by  and  by 
Along  about  the  middle  of  July, 
A  time  in  which  they  had  no  news  began, 
And  holding  unbrokenly  through  August,  ran 
Into  September.     Then,  one  afternoon, 
While    the   world   hung    between   the  sun   and 

moon, 

And  while  the  mother  and  her  girls  were  sitting 
Together  with  their  sewing  and  their  knitting, — 
Before  the  early-coming  evening's  gloom 
Had  gathered  round  them  in  the  living-room, 
Helplessly  wondering  to  each  other  when 
They  should  hear  something  from  their  absent 

men, — 

They  saw,  all  three,  against  the  window-pane, 
A  face  that  came  and  went,  and  came  again, 
Three  times,  as  though  for  each  of  them,  about 
As  high  up  from  the  porch's  floor  without 
As  a  man's  head  would  be  that  stooped  to  stare 
Into  the  room  on  their  own  level  there. 
Its  eyes  dwelt  on  them  wistfully  as  if 
Longing  to  speak  with  the  dumb  lips  some  grief 
They  could  not  speak.     The  women  did  not  start 
Or  scream,   though  each   one  of  them,   in  her 
heart, 

no 


THE  FACE  AT  THE  WINDOW 

Knew  she  was  looking  on  no  living  face, 
But  stared,  as  dumb  as  it  did,  in  her  place." 

Here  our  host  paused,  and  one  sigh  broke  from 

all 

Our  circle  whom  his  tale  had  held  in  thrall. 
But  he  who  had  required  it  of  him  spoke 
In  what  we  others  felt  an  ill-timed  joke: 
''Well,    this   is    something   like!"     .A   girl    said, 

"Don't!" 

As  if  it  hurt,  and  he  said,  "Well,  I  won't. 
Go  on!"     And  in  a  sort  of  muse  our  host 
Said:   "I  suppose  we  all  expect  a  ghost 
Will  sometimes  come  to  us.     But  I  doubt  if  we 
Are  moved  by  its  coming  as  we  thought  to  be. 
At  any  rate,  the  women  were  not  scared, 
But,  as  I  said,  they  simply  sat  and  stared 
Till  the  face  vanished.     Then  the  mother  said, 
'It  was  your  father,  girls,  and  he  is  dead.' 
But  both  had  known  him;   and  now  all  went  on 
Much    as    before    till    three    weeks    more    were 

gone, 

Wrhen,  one  night  sitting  as  they  sat  before, 
Together  with  their  mother,  at  the  door 
They  heard  a  fumbling  hand,  and  on  the  walk 
Up  from  the  pier,  the  tramp  and  muffled  talk 
Of  different  wind-blown  voices  that  they  knew 
For  the  hoarse  voices  of  their  father's  crew. 

in 


THE  FACE  AT  THE  WINDOW 

Then  the  door  opened,  and  their  father  stood 
Before  them,  palpably  in  flesh  and  blood. 
The  mother  spoke  for  all,  her  own  misgiving: 
'Father,  is  this  your  ghost?     Or  are  you  living?' 
'I  am  alive!'     'But  in  this  very  place 
We  saw  your  face  look,  like  a  spirit's  face, 
There  through  that  window,   just  three  weeks 

ago, 

And  now  you  are  alive!'     'I  did  not  know 
That  I  had  come;   all  I  know  is  that  then 
I  wanted  to  tell  you  folks  here  that  our  Ben 
Was  dying  of  typhoid  fever.     He  raved  of  you 
So  that  I  could  not  think  what  else  to  do. 
He's  there  in  Bay  Shaloor!' 

"Well,  that's  the  end." 
And  rising  up  to  mend  the  fire  our  friend 
Seemed  trying  to  shun  comment;   but  in  vain: 
The  exacting  guest  came  at  him  once  again; 
"You  must  be  going  to  fall  down,  I  thought, 
There  at  the  climax,  when  your  story  brought 
The  skipper  home  alive  and  well.     But  no, 
You  saved  yourself  with  honor."     The  girl  said, 

"Oh," 

Who  spoke  before,  "it's  wonderful!    But  you, 
How  could  you  think  of  anything  so  true, 
So  delicate,  as  the  father's  wistful  face 
Coming  there  at  the  window  in  the  place 

112 


THE  FACE  AT  THE  WINDOW 

Of  the  dead  son's!    And  then,   that  quaintest 

touch, 

Of  half -apology — that  he  felt  so  much, 
He  had  to  come!    How  perfectly  New  England! 

Well, 

I  hope  nobody  will  undertake  to  tell 
A  common  or  garden  ghost-story  to-night." 

Our  host  had  turned  again,  and  at  her  light 
And  playful  sympathy  he  said,  "My  dear, 
I  hope  that  no  one  will  imagine  here 
I  have  been  inventing  in  the  tale  that's  done. 
My  little  story's  charm  if  it  has  one 
Is  from  no  skill  of  mine.     One  does  not  change 
The  course  of  fable  from  its  wonted  range 
To  such  effect  as  I  have  seemed  to  do: 
Only  the  fact  could  make  my  story  true." 


AN    EXPERIENCE 


VII 
AN   EXPERIENCE 

OR  a  long  time  after  the  event  my  mind 
dealt  with  the  poor  man  in  helpless  con 
jecture,  and  it  has  now  begun  to  do  so  again 
for  no  reason  that  I  can  assign.  All  that  I  ever 
heard  about  him  was  that  he  was  some  kind  of 
insurance  man.  Whether  life,  fire,  or  marine  in 
surance  I  never  found  out,  and  I  am  not  sure 
that  I  tried  to  find  out. 

There  was  something  in  the  event  which  dis 
charged  him  of  all  obligation  to  define  himself 
of  this  or  that  relation  to  life,  He  must  have  had 
some  relation  to  it  such  as  we  all  bear,  and  since 
the  question  of  him  has  come  up  with  me  again 
I  have  tried  him  in  several  of  those  relations — 
father,  son,  brother,  husband — without  identify 
ing  him  very  satisfyingly  in  either. 

As  I  say,  he  seemed  by  what  happened  to  be 
liberated  from  the  debt  we  owe  in  that  kind  to 
one  another's  curiosity,  sympathy,  or  whatever. 
I  ^cannot  say  what  errand  it  was  that  brought 

117 


AN  EXPERIENCE 

him  to  the  place,  a  strange,  large,  indeterminate 
open  room,  where  several  of  us  sat  occupied  with 
different  sorts  of  business,  but,  as  it  seems  to  me 
now,  by  only  a  provisional  right  to  the  place. 
Certainly  the  corner  allotted  to  my  own  editorial 
business  was  of  temporary  assignment;  I  was 
there  until  we  could  find  a  more  permanent  office. 
The  man  had  nothing  to  do  with  me  or  with  the 
publishers;  he  had  no  manuscript,  or  plan  for 
an  article  which  he  wished  to  propose  and  to  talk 
himself  into  writing,  so  that  he  might  bring  it 
with  a  claim  to  acceptance,  as  though  he  had 
been  asked  to  write  it.  In  fact,  he  did  not  even 
look  of  the  writing  sort;  and  his  affair  with  some 
other  occupant  of  that  anomalous  place  could 
have  been  in  no  wise  literary.  Probably  it  was 
some  kind  of  insurance  business,  and  I  have  been 
left  with  the  impression  of  fussiness  in  his  con 
duct  of  it;  he  had  to  my  involuntary  attention 
an  effect  of  conscious  unwelcome  with  it. 

After  subjectively  dealing  with  this  impression, 
I  ceased  to  notice  him,  without  being  able  to  give 
myself  to  my  own  work.  The  day  was  choking 
hot,  of  a  damp  that  clung  about  one,  and  forbade 
one  so  much  effort  as  was  needed  to  relieve  one 
of  one's  discomfort;  to  pull  at  one's  wilted  collar 
and  loosen  the  linen  about  one's  reeking  neck 
meant  exertion  which  one  willingly  forbore;  it 

118 


AN  EXPERIENCE 

was  less  suffering  to  suffer  passively  than  to 
suffer  actively.  The  day  was  of  the  sort  which 
begins  with  a  brisk  heat,  and  then,  with  a  falling 
breeze,  decays  into  mere  swelter.  To  come  in 
doors  out  of  the  sun  was  no  escape  from  the 
heat;  my  window  opened  upon  a  shaded  alley 
where  the  air  was  damper  without  being  cooler 
than  the  air  within. 

At  last  I  lost  myself  in  my  work  with  a  kind 
of  humid  interest  in  the  psychological  inquiry  of 
a  contributor  who  was  dealing  with  a  matter 
rather  beyond  his  power.  I  did  not  think  that 
he  was  fortunate  in  having  cast  his  inquiry  in  the 
form  of  a  story;  I  did  not  think  that  his  contrast 
of  love  and  death  as  the  supreme  facts  of  life  was 
what  a  subtler  or  stronger  hand  could  have  made 
it,  or  that  the  situation  gained  in  effectiveness 
from  having  the  hero  die  in  the  very  moment  of 
his  acceptance.  In  his  supposition  that  the 
reader  would  care  more  for  his  hero  simply  be 
cause  he  had  undergone  that  tremendous  catas 
trophe,  the  writer  had  omitted  to  make  him  in 
teresting  otherwise;  perhaps  he  could  not. 

My  mind  began  to  wander  from  the  story  and 
not  very  relevantly  to  employ  itself  with  the  ques 
tion  of  how  far  our  experiences  really  affect  our 
characters.  I  remembered  having  once  classed 
certain  temperaments  as  the  stuff  of  tragedy,  and 

119 


AN  EXPERIENCE 

/ 

others  as  the  stuff  of  comedy,  and  of  having  found 
a  greater  cruelty  in  the  sorrows  which  light  natures 
undergo,  as  unfit  and  disproportionate  for  them. 
Disaster,  I  tacitly  decided,  was  the  fit  lot  of  serious 
natures;  when  it  befell  the  frivolous  it  was  more 
than  they  ought  to  have  been  made  to  bear;  it 
was  not  of  their  quality.  Then  by  the  mental 
zigzagging  which  all  thinking  is  I  thought  of  my 
self  and  whether  I  was  of  this  make  or  that.  If 
it  was  more  creditable  to  be  of  serious  stuff  than 
frivolous,  though  I  had  no  agency  in  choosing,  I 
asked  myself  how  I  should  be  affected  by  the 
sight  of  certain  things,  like  the  common  calamities 
reported  every  day  in  the  papers  which  I  had 
hitherto  escaped  seeing.  By  another  zigzag  I 
thought  that  I  had  never  known  a  day  so  close 
and  stifling  and  humid.  I  then  reflected  upon  the 
comparative  poverty  of  the  French  language, 
which  I  was  told  had  only  that  one  word  for  the 
condition  we  could  call  by  half  a  dozen  different 
names,  as  humid,  moist,  damp,  sticky,  reeking, 
sweltering,  and  so  on.  I  supposed  that  a  book  of 
synonyms  would  give  even  more  English  adjec 
tives  ;  I  thought  of  looking,  but  my  book  of  syno 
nyms  was  at  the  back  of  my  table,  and  I  would 
have  to  rise  for  it.  Then  I  questioned  whether 
the  French  language  was  so  destitute  of  adjectives, 
after  all ;  I  preferred  to  doubt  it  rather  than  rise. 

120 


AN  EXPERIENCE 

With  no  more  logic  than  those  other  vagaries 
had,  I  realized  that  the  person  who  had  started 
me  in  them  was  no  longer  in  the  room.  He  must 
have  gone  outdoors,  and  I  visualized  him  in  the 
street  pushing  about,  crowded  hither  and  thither, 
and  striking  against  other  people  as  he  went  and 
came.  I  was  glad  I  was  not  in  his  place;  I  be 
lieved  I  should  have  fallen  in  a  faint  from  the 
heat,  as  I  had  once  almost  done  in  New  York  on  a 
day  like  that.  From  this  my  mind  jumped  to 
the  thought  of  sudden  death  in  general.  Was  it 
such  a  happy  thing  as  people  pretended?  For 
the  person  himself,  yes,  perhaps ;  but  not  for  those 
whom  he  had  left  at  home,  say,  in  the  morning, 
and  who  were  expecting  him  at  home  in  the  eve 
ning.  I  granted  that  it  was  generally  accepted  as 
the  happiest  death,  but  no  one  that  had  tried  it 
had  said  so.  To  be  sure,  one  was  spared  a  long 
sickness,  with  suffering  from  pain  and  from  the 
fear  of  death.  But  one  had  no  time  for  making 
one's  peace  with  God,  as  it  used  to  be  said,  and 
after  all  there  might  be  something  in  death-bed 
repentance,  although  cultivated  people  no  longer 
believed  in  it.  Then  I  reverted  to  the  family  un 
prepared  for  the  sudden  death:  the  mother,  the 
wife,  the  children.  I  struggled  to  get  away  from 
the  question,  but  the  vagaries  which  had  lightly 
dispersed  themselves  before  clung  persistently  to 

121 


AN  EXPERIENCE 

the  theme  now.  I  felt  that  it  was  like  a  bad 
dream.  That  was  a  promising  diversion.  Had 
one  any  sort  of  volition  in  the  quick  changes  of 
dreams?  One  was  aware  of  finding  a  certain 
nightmare  insupportable,  and  of  breaking  from 
it  as  by  main  force,  and  then  falling  into  a  deep, 
sweet  sleep.  Was  death  something  like  waking 
from  a  dream  such  as  that,  which  this  life  largely 
was,  and  then  sinking  into  a  long,  restful  slumber, 
and  possibly  never  waking  again? 

Suddenly  I  perceived  that  the  man  had  come 
back.  He  might  have  been  there  some  time  with 
his  effect  of  fussing  and  his  pathetic  sense  of  un 
welcome.  I  had  not  noticed;  I  only  knew  that 
he  stood  at  the  half-open  door  with  the  knob  of 
it  in  his  hand  looking  into  the  room  blankly. 

As  he  stood  there  he  lifted  his  hand  and  rubbed 
it  across  his  forehead  as  if  in  a  sort  of  daze  from 
the  heat.  I  recognized  the  gesture  as  one  very 
characteristic  of  myself;  I  had  often  rubbed  my 
hand  across  my  forehead  on  a  close,  hot  day  like 
that.  Then  the  man  suddenly  vanished  as  if 
he  had  sunk  through  the  floor. 

People  who  had  not  noticed  that  he  was  there 
noticed  now  that  he  was  not  there.  Some  made 
a  crooked  rush  toward  the  place  where  he  had 
been,  and  one  of  those  helpful  fellow-men  who 
are  first  in  all  needs  lifted  his  head  and  mainly 

122 


AN  EXPERIENCE 

carried  him  into  the  wide  space  which  the  street 
stairs  mounted  to,  and  laid  him  on  the  floor. 
It  was  darker,  if  not  cooler  there,  and  we  stood 
back  to  give  him  the  air  which  he  drew  in  with 
long,  deep  sighs.  One  of  us  ran  down  the  stairs 
to  the  street  for  a  doctor,  wherever  he  might  be 
found,  and  ran  against  a  doctor  at  the  last  step. 

The  doctor  came  and  knelt  over  the  prostrate 
figure  and  felt  its  pulse,  and  put  his  ear  down  to 
its  heart.  It,  which  has  already  in  my  telling 
ceased  to  be  he,  drew  its  breath  in  those  long  sus- 
pirations  which  seemed  to  search  each  more  pro 
foundly  than  the  last  the  lurking  life,  drawing  it 
from  the  vital  recesses  and  expelling  it  in  those 
vast  sighs. 

They  went  on  and  on,  and  established  in  our 
consciousness  the  expectation  of  indefinite  con 
tinuance.  We  knew  that  the  figure  there  was 
without  such  consciousness  as  ours,  unless  it  was 
something  so  remotely  withdrawn  that  it  could 
not  manifest  itself  in  any  signal  to  our  senses. 
There  was  nothing  tragical  in  the  affair,  but  it 
had  a  surpassing  dignity.  It  was  as  if  the  figure 
was  saying  something  to  the  life  in  each  of  us 
which  none  of  us  would  have  words  to  interpret, 
speaking  some  last  message  from  the  hither  side 
of  that  bourne  from  which  there  is  no  returning. 

There  was  a  clutch  upon  my  heart  which  tight- 
123 


AN  EXPERIENCE 

ened  with  the  slower  and  slower  succession  of 
those  awful  breaths.  Then  one  was  drawn  and 
expelled  and  then  another  was  not  drawn.  I 
waited  for  the  breathing  to  begin  again,  and  it 
did  not  begin.  The  doctor  rose  from  kneeling 
over  the  figure  that  had  been  a  man,  and  uttered, 
with  a  kind  of  soundlessness,  "Gone,"  and  me 
chanically  dusted  his  fingers  with  the  thumbs  of 
each  hand  from  their  contact  with  what  had  now 
become  all  dust  forever. 

That  helpfulest  one  among  us  laid  a  cloth  over 
the  face,  and  the  rest  of  us  went  away.  It  was 
finished.  The  man  was  done  with  the  sorrow 
which,  in  our  sad  human  order,  must  now  begin 
for  those  he  loved  and  who  loved  him.  I  tried 
vaguely  to  imagine  their  grief  for  not  having  been 
uselessly  with  him  at  the  last,  and  I  could  not. 
The  incident  remained  with  me  like  an  experi 
ence,  something  I  had  known  rather  than  seen. 
I  could  not  alienate  it  by  my  pity  and  make  it 
another's.  They  whom  it  must  bereave  seemed 
for  the  time  immeasurably  removed  from  the 
fact. 


THE    BOARDERS 


VIII 
THE   BOARDERS 

HTHE  boarder  who  had  eloped  was  a  student 
*  at  the  theological  seminary,  and  he  had 
really  gone  to  visit  his  family,  so  that  he  had  a 
fairly  good  conscience  in  giving  this  color  to  the 
fact  that  he  was  leaving  the  place  permanently 
because  he  could  not  bear  it  any  longer.  It  was 
a  shade  of  deceit  to  connive  with  his  room-mate 
for  the  custody  of  his  carpet-bag  and  the  few  socks 
and  collars  and  the  one  shirt  and  summer  coat 
which  did  not  visibly  affect  its  lankness  when 
gathered  into  it  from  his  share  of  the  bureau- 
drawers;  but  he  did  not  know  what  else  to  do, 
and  he  trusted  to  a  final  forgiveness  when  all  the 
facts  were  considered  by  a  merciful  providence. 
His  board  was  fully  paid,  and  he  had  suffered  long. 
He  argued  with  his  room-mate  that  he  could  do 
no  good  by  remaining,  and  that  he  would  have 
stayed  if  he  could  have  believed  there  was  any 
use.  Besides,  the  food  was  undermining  his 
health,  and  the  room  with  that  broken  window 

127 


THE  BOARDERS 

had  given  him  a  cold  already.  He  had  a  right  to 
go,  and  it  was  his  duty  to  himself  and  the  friends 
who  were  helping  him  through  the  seminary  not 
to  get  sick. 

He  did  not  feel  that  he  had  convinced  his 
room-mate,  who  took  charge  of  his  carpet-bag 
and  now  sat  with  it  between  his  feet  waiting  the 
signal  of  the  fugitive's  surreptitious  return  for  it. 
He  was  a  vague-looking  young  man,  presently  in 
charge  of  the  "Local  and  Literary"  column  of  the 
one  daily  paper  of  the  place,  and  he  had  just 
explained  to  the  two  other  boarders  who  were 
watching  with  him  for  the  event  that  he  was  not 
certain  whether  it  was  the  supper,  or  the  anxiety 
of  the  situation,  or  just  what  it  was  that  was 
now  affecting  his  digestion. 

The  fellow-boarders,  who  sat  on  the  edge  of 
the  bed,  in  default  of  the  one  unbroken  chair 
which  their  host  kept  for  himself,  as  easier  than 
a  mattress  to  get  up  from  suddenly,  did  not  take 
sides  for  or  against  him  in  his  theories  of  his  dis 
comfort.  One  of  them  glanced  at  the  broken 
window. 

"How  do  you  glaze  that  in  the  daytime?  You 
can't  use  the  bolster  then?" 

"I'm  not  in,  much,  in  the  daytime." 

It  was  a  medical  student  who  had  spoken,  but 
he  was  now  silent,  and  the  other  said,  after  they 

128 


THE  BOARDERS 

had  listened  to  the  twitter  of  a  piano  in  the  parlor 
under  the  room,  "That  girl's  playing  will  be  the 
death  of  me." 

"Not  if  her  mother's  cooking  isn't,"  the  medi 
cal  student,  whose  name  was  Wallace,  observed 
with  a  professional  effect. 

"Why  don't  you  prescribe  something  for  it?" 
the  law  student  suggested. 

"Which?"  Wallace  returned. 

"I  don't  believe  anything  could  cure  the  play 
ing.  I  must  have  meant  the  cooking." 

"You're  a  promising  young  jurist,  Blakeley. 
What  makes  you  think  I  could  cure  the  cooking?" 

"Oh,  I  just  wondered.  The  sick  one  gets 
paler  every  day.  I  wonder  what  ails  her." 

"She's  not  my  patient." 

"Oh!  Hippocratic  oath.  Rather  fine  of  you, 
Wallace.  But  if  she's  not  your  patient — " 

"  Listen !"  their  host  interrupted,  sharply.  After 
a  joint  silence  he  added:  "No.  It  must  have 
been  the  sleet." 

"Well,  Briggs,"  the  law  student  said,  "if  it 
must  have  been  the  sleet,  what  mustn't  it  have 
been?" 

"Oh!"  Briggs  explained,  "I  thought  it  was 
Phillips.  He  was  to  throw  a  handful  of  gravel 
at  the  window." 

"And  then  you  were  to  run  down  with  his  bag 
9  I29 


THE  BOARDERS 

and  help  him  to  make  his  escape  from  a  friendless 
widow.  Well,  I  don't  know  that  I  blame  him. 
If  I  didn't  owe  two  weeks'  board,  I'd  leave  my 
self — though  I  hope  I  shouldn't  sneak  away.  And 
if  Mrs.  Betterson  didn't  owe  Wallace,  here,  two 
weeks'  board,  we'd  walk  off  together  arm-in-arm 
at  high  noon.  I  can't  understand  how  he  ever 
came  to  advance  her  the  money." 

Wallace  rose  from  the  bed,  and  kicked  each  leg 
out  to  dislodge  the  tight  trousers  of  the  middle 
eighteen-fifties  which  had  caught  on  the  tops  of 
his  high  boots.  "You're  a  tonguey  fellow,  Blake- 
ley.  But  you'll  find,  as  you  live  long,  that  there 
are  several  things  you  can't  explain." 

"I'll  tell  you  what,"  Blakeley  said.  "We'll 
get  Mrs.  Betterson  to  take  your  loan  for  my 
debt,  and  we'll  go  at  once." 

"You  can  propose  something  like  that  before 
the  justice  of  the  peace  in  your  first  pettifogging 


case." 


"I  believe  Wallace  likes  to  stay.  And  yet  he 
must  know  from  his  anatomical  studies,  better 
than  the  animals  themselves,  what  cuts  of  meat 
the  old  lady  gives  us.  I  shouldn't  be  so  fastidious 
about  the  cuts,  if  she  didn't  treat  them  all  with 
pork  gravy.  Well,  I  mustn't  be  too  hard  on  a 
lone  widow  that  I  owe  board  to.  I  don't  suppose 
his  diet  had  anything  to  do  with  the  deep  damna- 

130 


THE  BOARDERS 

tion  of  the  late  Betterson's  taking  off.  Does  that 
stove  of  yours  smoke,  Briggs?" 

1  'Not  when  there  isn't  a  fire  in  it." 

"I  just  asked.  Wallace's  stove  smokes,  fire  or 
no  fire.  It  takes  advantage  of  the  old  lady's  in 
debtedness  to  him.  There  seem,"  he  added, 
philosophically,  "to  be  just  two  occupations  open 
to  widows  who  have  to  support  themselves: 
millinery  business  for  young  ones,  boarding- 
housing  for  old  ones.  It  is  rather  restricted. 
What  do  you  suppose  she  puts  into  the  mince- 
pies?  Mince-pies  are  rather  a  mystery  at  the 
best." 

Wallace  was  walking  up  and  down  the  room 
still  in  some  difficulty  with  his  trousers-legs,  and 
kicking  out  from  time  to  time  to  dislodge  them. 
"How  long  should  you  say  Blakeley  had  been 
going  on?"  he  asked  Briggs. 

"You  never  can  tell,"  Briggs  responded.  "I 
think  he  doesn't  know  himself." 

"Well  said,  youthful  scribe!  With  such  listen 
ers  as  you  two,  I  could  go  on  forever.  Consider 
yourselves  clapped  jovially  on  the  back,  my  gentle 
Briggs;  I  can't  get  up  to  do  it  from  the  hollow 
of  your  bed  here.  As  you  were  saying,  the  won 
der  about  these  elderly  widows  who  keep  boarding- 
houses  is  the  domestic  dilapidation  they  fall  into. 
If  they've  ever  known  how  to  cook  a  meal  or 


THE  BOARDERS 

sweep  a  room  or  make  a  bed,  these  arts  desert 
them  in  the  presence  of  their  boarders.  Their 
only  aim  in  life  seems  to  be  preventing  the  escape 
of  their  victims,  and  they  either  let  them  get  into 
debt  for  their  board  or  borrow  money  from  them. 
But  why  do  they  always  have  daughters,  and  just 
two  of  them:  one  beautiful,  fashionable,  and  de 
voted  to  the  piano;  the  other  willing  to  work,  but 
pale,  pathetic,  and  incapable  of  the  smallest 
achievement  with  the  gridiron  or  the  wash-board  ? 
It's  a  thing  to  make  a  person  want  to  pay  up  and 
leave,  even  if  he's  reading  law.  If  Wallace,  here, 
had  the  spirit  of  a  man,  he  would  collect  the 
money  owing  him,  and — " 

"Oh,  stop  it,  Blakeley!"  Wallace  stormed.  "I 
should  think  you'd  get  tired  of  your  talk  yourself." 

"Well,  as  you  insist — " 

Blakeley  began  again,  but  Briggs  jumped  to  his 
feet  and  caught  up  Phillips's  carpet-bag,  and 
looked  wildly  around.  "It's  gravel,  this  time." 

"Well,  take  your  hat,  Briggs.  It  may  be  a 
prolonged  struggle.  But  remember  that  Phillips's 
cause  is  just.  He's  paid  his  board,  and  he  has  a 
perfect  right  to  leave.  She  has  no  right  to  prevent 
him.  Think  of  that  when  the  fray  is  at  its  worst. 
But  try  to  get  him  off  quietly,  if  you  can.  Deal 
gently  with  the  erring,  while  you  stand  firm  for 
boarders'  rights.  Remember  that  Phillips  is 

132 


THE  BOARDERS 

sneaking  off  in  order  to  spare  her  feelings  and  has 
come  pretty  near  prevarication  in  the  effort. 
Have  you  got  your  shoes  off?  No;  it's  your  rub 
bers  on.  That's  better." 

Briggs  faltered  with  the  carpet-bag  in  his  hand. 
"Boys,  I  don't  like  this.  It  feels — clandestine." 

"It  looks  that  way,  too,"  Blakeley  admitted. 
"It  has  an  air  of  conspiracy." 

"I've  got  half  a  mind  to  let  Phillips  come  in 
and  get  his  bag  himself." 

"It  would  serve  him  right,  though  I  don't  know 
why,  exactly.  He  has  a  right  to  spare  his  own 
feelings  if  he's  sparing  hers  at  the  same  time.  Of 
course  he's  afraid  she'll  plead  with  him  to  stay, 
and  he'll  have  to  be  inexorable  with  her;  and  if 
I  understand  the  yielding  nature  of  Phillips  he 
doesn't  like  to  be  inexorable." 

There  came  another  sharp  rattle  of  small  pebbles 
at  the  window. 

"Oh,  confound  him!"  Briggs  cried  under  his 
breath,  and  he  shuffled  out  of  the  room  and  crept 
noiselessly  down  the  stairs  to  the  front  door. 
The  door  creaked  a  little  in  opening,  and  he  left 
it  ajar.  The  current  of  cold  air  that  swept  up 
to  the  companions  he  had  left  behind  at  his  room 
door  brought  them  the  noise  of  his  rush  down 
the  gravel  walk  to  the  gate  and  a  noise  there  as 
of  fugitive  steps  on  the  pavement  outside. 


THE  BOARDERS 

A  weak  female  tread  made  itself  heard  in  the 
hallway,  followed  by  a  sharp  voice  from  a  door 
in  the  rear.  "Was  it  the  cat,  Jenny?" 

"No;  the  door  just  seems  to  have  blown  open. 
The  catch  is  broken." 

Swift,  strong  steps  advanced  with  an  effect  of 
angry  suspicion.  "I  don't  believe  it  blew  open. 
More  likely  the  cat  clawed  it  open." 

The  steps  which  the  voice  preceded  seemed  to 
halt  at  the  open  door,  as  if  falling  back  from  it, 
and  Wallace  and  Blakeley,  looking  down,  saw  by 
the  dim  flare  of  the  hall  lamp  the  face  of  Briggs 
confronting  the  face  of  Mrs.  Betterson  from  the 
outer  darkness.  They  saw  the  sick  girl,  whose 
pallor  they  could  not  see,  supporting  herself  by 
the  stairs-post  with  one  hand  and  pressing  the 
other  to  her  side. 

"Oh!  It's  you,  Mr.  Briggs,"  the  landlady  said, 
with  a  note  of  inculpation.  "What  made  you 
leave  the  door  open?" 

The  spectators  could  not  see  the  swift  change 
in  Briggs's  face  from  terror  to  savage  desperation, 
but  they  noted  it  in  his  voice.  "Yes — yes!  It's 
me.  I  just — I  was  just —  No  I  won't,  either! 
You'd  better  know  the  truth.  I  was  taking 
Phillips's  bag  out  to  him.  He  was  afraid  to  come 
in  for  it,  because  he  didn't  want  to  see  you,  the 
confounded  coward!  He's  left." 


THE  BOARDERS 

"Left?  And  he  said  he  would  stay  till  spring! 
Didn't  he,  Jenny?" 

"I  don't  remember — "  the  girl  weakly  gasped, 
but  her  mother  did  not  heed  her  in  her  mounting 
wrath. 

"A  great  preacher  he'll  make.  What  'd  he  say 
he  left  for?" 

"He  didn't  say.     Will  you  let  me  up-stairs?" 

"No,  I  won't,  till  you  tell  me.  You  know  well 
enough,  between  you." 

"Yes,  I  do  know,"  Briggs  answered,  savagely. 
"He  left  because  he  was  tired  of  eating  sole- 
leather  for  steak,  and  fire-salt  pork,  and  tar  for 
molasses,  and  butter  strong  enough  to  make  your 
nose  curl,  and  drinking  burnt-rye  slops  for  coffee 
and  tea-grounds  for  tea.  And  so  am  I,  and  so  are 
all  of  us,  and — and —  Will  you  let  me  go  up 
stairs  now,  Mrs.  Betterson?" 

His  voice  had  risen,  not  so  high  but  that  an 
other  voice  from  the  parlor  could  prevail  over  it: 
a  false,  silly,  girl  voice,  with  the  twitter  of  piano- 
keys  as  from  hands  swept  over  the  whole  board 
to  help  drown  the  noise  of  the  quarrel  in  the  hall. 
"Oh  yes,  I'll  sing  it  again,  Mr.  Saunders,  if  you 
sa-a-a-y." 

Then  this  voice  lifted  itself  in  a  silly  song,  and 
a  silence  followed  the  voices  in  the  hall,  except  for 
the  landlady's  saying,  brokenly:  "Well,  all  right, 


THE  BOARDERS 

Mr.  Briggs.  You  can  go  up  to  your  room  for  all 
me.  I've  tried  to  be  a  mother  to  you  boys,  but 
if  this  is  what  I  get  for  it!" 

The  two  at  the  threshold  of  Briggs 's  room  re 
treated  within,  as  he  bounded  furiously  upon 
them  and  slammed  the  door  after  him.  It  started 
open  again,  from  the  chronic  defect  of  the  catch, 
but  he  did  not  care. 

"Well,  Briggs,  I  hope  you  feel  better  now," 
Blakeley  began.  "You  certainly  told  her  the 
truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth. 
But  I  wonder  you  had  the  heart  to  do  it  before 
that  sick  girl." 

"I  didn't  have  the  heart,"  Briggs  shouted. 
"But  I  had  the  courage,  and  if  you  say  one  word 
more,  Blakeley,  I'll  throw  you  out  of  the  room. 
I'm  going  to  leave!  My  board's  paid  if  yours 
isn't." 

He  went  wildly  about,  catching  things  down 
here  and  there  from  nails  and  out  of  drawers. 
The  tears  stood  in  his  eyes.  But  suddenly  he 
stopped  and  listened  to  the  sounds  from  below — 
the  sound  of  the  silly  singing  in  the  parlor,  and 
the  sound  of  sobbing  in  the  dining-room,  and  the 
sound  of  vain  entreating  between  the  sobs. 

"Oh,  I  don't  suppose  I'm  fit  to  keep  a  boarding- 
house.  I  never  was  a  good  manager;  and  every 
body  imposes  on  me,  and  everything  is  so  dear, 

136 


THE  BOARDERS 

and  I  don't  know  what's  good  from  what's  bad. 
Your  poor  father  used  to  look  after  all  that." 

"Well,  don't  you  cry,  now,  mother!  It  '11  all 
come  right,  you'll  see.  I'm  getting  so  I  can  go 
and  do  the  marketing  now;  and  if  Minervy  would 
only  help  a  little — " 

"No,  no!"  the  mother's  voice  came  anxiously 
up.  "We  can  get  along  without  her;  we  always 
have.  I  know  he  likes  her,  and  I  want  to  give 
her  every  chance.  We  can  get  along.  If  she  was 
on'y  married,  once,  we  could  all  live — "  A  note 
of  self-comforting  gradually  stole  into  the  mother's 
voice,  and  the  sound  of  a  nose  violently  blown 
seemed  to  note  a  period  in  her  suffering. 

"Oh,  mother,  I  wish  I  was  well!"  The  girl's 
voice  came  with  a  burst  of  wild  lamenting. 

"'Sh,  'sh,  deary!"  her  mother  entreated.  "He'll 
hear  you,  and  then — " 

"'Hazel  Dell'?"  the  silly  voice  came  from  the 
parlor,  with  a  sound  of  fright  in  it.  "I  can  sing 
it  without  the  music."  The  piano  keys  twittered 
the  prelude  and  the  voice  sang: 

"In  the  Hazel  Dell  my  Nelly's  sleeping, 
Nelly  loved  so  long  !  " 

Wallace  went  forward  and  shut  the  door.  "It's 
a  shame  to  overhear  them!  What  are  you  going 
to  do,  you  fellows?" 


THE  BOARDERS 

"  Fm  going  to  stay,"  Briggs  said,  "  if  it  kills 
me.  At  least  I  will  till  Minervy's  married.  I 
don't  care  what  the  grub's  like.  I  can  always 
get  a  bite  at  the  restaurant." 

"If  anybody  will  pay  up  my  back  board,  I'll 
stay,  too,"  Blakeley  followed.  "I  should  like  to 
make  a  virtue  of  it,  and,  as  things  stand,  I  can't." 

4 'All  right,"  Wallace  said,  and  he  went  out  and 
down  the  stairs.  Then  from  the  dining-room  be 
low  his  heavy  voice  offering  encouragement  came 
up,  in  terms  which  the  others  could  not  make  out. 

"I'll  bet  he's  making  her  another  advance," 
Blakeley  whispered,  as  if  he  might  be  overheard 
by  Wallace. 

"I  wish  I  could  have  made  to  do  it,"  Briggs 
whispered  back.  "I  feel  as  mean  as  pursley. 
Would  you  like  to  kick  me?" 

"I  don't  see  how  that  would  do  any  good.  I 
may  want  to  borrow  money  of  you,  and  you  can't 
ask  a  loan  from  a  man  you've  kicked.  Besides, 
I  think  what  you  said  may  do  her  good." 


BREAKFAST  IS  MY  BEST  MEAL 


IX 

BREAKFAST   IS   MY   BEST   MEAL 


BREAKFAST  is  my  best  meal,  and  I  reckon 
it's  always  been 

Ever  since  I  was  old  enough  to  know  what  break 
fast  could  mean. 
I  mind  when  we  lived  in  the  cabin  out  on  the 

Illinoy, 
Where  father  had  took  up  a  quarter-section  when 

I  was  a  boy, 
I  used  to  go  for  the  cows  as  soon  as  it  was 

light; 
And  when  I  started  back  home,  before  I  come 

in  sight, 
I  come  in  smell  of  the  cabin,  where  mother  was 

frying  the  ham, 
And  boiling  the  coffee,  that  reached  through  the 

air  like  a  mile  o'  ba'm, 
141 


BREAKFAST  IS  MY  BEST  MEAL 

'N'  I  bet  you  I  didn't  wait  to  see  what  it  was 

that  the  dog 
Thought  he'd  got  under  the  stump  or  inside  o' 

the  hollow  log! 

But  I  made  the  old  cows  canter  till  their  hoof- 
joints  cracked — you  know 
That  dry,  funny  kind  of  a  noise  that  the  cows 

make  when  they  go — 
And  I  never  stopped  to  wash  when  I  got  to  the 

cabin  door; 
I  pulled  up  my  chair  and  e't  like  I  never  had  e't 

before. 
And  mother  she  set  there  and  watched  me  eat, 

and  eat,  and  eat, 
Like  as  if  she  couldn't  give  her  old  eyes  enough 

of  the  treat; 
And  she  split  the  shortened  biscuit,  and  spread 

the  butter  between, 
And  let  it  lay  there  and  melt,  and  soak  and  soak 

itself  in; 
And  she  piled  up  my  plate  with  potato  and  ham 

and  eggs, 
Till  I  couldn't  hold  any  more,  or  hardly  stand 

on  my  legs; 
And  she  filled  me  up  with  coffee  that  would  float 

an  iron  wedge, 
And  never  give  way  a  mite,  or  spill  a  drop  at 

the  edge. 

142 


BREAKFAST  IS  MY  BEST  MEAL 

ii 

What?    Well,  yes,  this  is  good  coffee,  too.     If 

they  don't  know  much, 
They  do  know  how  to  make  coffee,  I  will  say 

that  for  these  Dutch. 
But  my — oh,  my!    It  ain't  the  kind  of  coffee  my 

mother  made, 
And  the  coffee  my  wife  used  to  make  would  throw 

it  clear  in  the  shade; 
And  the  brand  of  sugar -cured,  canvased   ham 

that  she  always  used — 
Well,  this  Westphalia  stuff  would  simply  have 

made  her  amused! 
That  so,   heigh?    I  saw  that  you  was  United 

States  as  soon 
As  ever  I  heard  you  talk;   I  reckon  I  know  the 

tune! 
Pick  it  out  anywhere;   and  you  understand  how 

I  feel 
About  these  here  foreign  breakfasts:  breakfast  is 

my  best  meal. 

in 

My!  but  my  wife  was  a  cook;  and  the  break 
fasts  she  used  to  get 

The  first  years  we  was  married,  I  can  smell  'em 
and  taste  'em  yet: 


BREAKFAST  IS  MY  BEST  MEAL 

Corn  cake  light  as  a  feather,  and  buckwheat  thin 

as  lace 
And    crisp    as    cracklin';     and    steak    that    you 

couldn't  have  the  face 
To  compare  any  steak  over  here  to;  and  chicken 

fried 
Maryland  style — I  couldn't  get  through  the  bill 

if  I  tried. 
And  then,  her  waffles!    My!    She'd  kind  of  slip 

in  a  few 
Between  the  ham  and  the  chicken — you  know  how 

women  '11  do — 
For  a  sort  of  little  surprise,  and,  if  I  was  running 

light, 

To  take  my  fancy  and  give  an  edge  to  my  appetite. 
Done  it  all  herself  as  long  as  we  was  poor,  and 

I  tell  you 

She  liked  to  see  me  eat  as  well  as  mother  used  to  do ; 
I  reckon  she  went  ahead  of  mother  some,  if  the 

truth  was  known, 
And  everything  she  touched  she  give  a  taste  of 

her  own. 

IV 

She  was  a  cook,  I  can  tell  you!    And  after  we 

got  ahead, 
And  she  could  'a*  had  a  girl  to  do  the  cookin' 

instead, 

144 


BREAKFAST  IS  MY  BEST  MEAL 

I  had  the  greatest  time  to  get  Momma  to  leave 

the  work; 
She  said  it  made  her  feel  like  a  mis'able  sneak 

and  shirk. 
She  didn't  want  daughter,  though,  when  we  did 

begin  to  keep  girls, 
To  come  in  the  kitchen  and  cook,  and  smell  up 

her  clo'es  and  curls; 

But  you  couldn't  have  stopped  the  child,  what 
ever  you  tried  to  do — 
I  reckon  the  gift  of  the  cookin'  was  born  in  Girly, 

too. 
Cook  she  would  from  the  first,  and  we  just  had 

to  let  her  alone; 
And  after  she  got  married,  and  had  a  house  of 

her  own, 
She  tried  to  make  me  feel,  when  I  come  to  live 

with  her, 
Like  it  was  my  house,  too;    and  I  tell  you  she 

done  it,  sir! 
She   remembered   that   breakfast   was   my   best 

meal,  and  she  tried 
To  have  all  I  used  to  have,  and  a  good  deal  more 

beside; 
Grape-fruit  to  begin  with,  or  melons  or  peaches, 

at  least — 
Husband's  business  took  him  there,  and  they  had 

went  to  live  East — 
10  145 


BREAKFAST  IS  MY  BEST  MEAL 

Then  a  Spanish  macker'l,  or  a  soft-shell  crab  on 

toast, 
Or  a  broiled  live  lobster!    Well,  sir,  I  don't  want 

to  seem  to  boast, 
But  I  don't  believe  you  could  have  got  in  the 

whole  of  New  York 
Any  such  an  oyster  fry  or  sausage  of  country 

pork. 

v 

Well,  I  don't  know  what-all  it  means;   I  always 

lived  just  so — 
Never  drinked  or  smoked,  and  yet,  here  about 

two  years  ago, 

I  begun  to  run  down ;  I  ain't  as  young  as  I  used  to  be ; 
And  the  doctors  all  said  Carlsbad,  and  I  reckon 

this  is  me. 
But  it's  more  like  some  one  I've  dreamt  of,  with 

all  three  of  'em  gone! 
Believe  in  ghosts?    Well,  I  do.     I  know  there 

are  ghosts.    I'm  one. 
Maybe  I  mayn't  look  it — I  was  always  inclined 

to  fat; 
The  doctors  say  that's  the  trouble,    and    very 

likely  it's  that. 

This  is  my  little  grandson,  and  this  is  the  oldest  one 
Of  Girly's  girls;    and  for  all  that  the  whole  of 

us  said  and  done, 

146 


BREAKFAST  IS  MY  BEST  MEAL 

She  must  come  with  grandpa  when  the  doctors 

sent  me  off  here, 
To  see  that  they  didn't  starve  him.    Ain't  that 

about  so,  my  dear? 
She  can  cook,  I  tell  you;  and  when  we  get  home 

again 
We're  goin'  to  have  something  to  eat;    I'm  just 

a-livin'  till  then. 
But  when  I  set  here  of  a  morning,  and  think  of 

them  that's  gone — 
Mother  and  Momma  and  Girly — well,  I  wouldn't 

like  to  let  on 
Before  the  children,  but  I  can  almost  seem  to 

see 

All  of  'em  lookin'  down,  like  as  if  they  pitied  me, 
After  the  breakfasts  they  give  me,  to  have  me 

have  to  put  up 
With  nothing  but  bread  and  butter,  and  a  little 

mis'able  cup 
Of  this  here  weak-kneed  coffee!    I  can't  tell  how 

you  feel, 
But  it  fairly  makes  me  sick  !     Breakfast  is  my 

best  meal. 


THE    MOTHER-BIRD 


X 

THE  MOTHER-BIRD 

OHE  wore  around  the  turned-up  brim  of  her 
^  bolero-like  toque  a  band  of  violets  not  so 
much  in  keeping  with  the  gray  of  the  austere 
November  day  as  with  the  blue  of  her  faded 
autumnal  eyes.  Her  eyes  were  autumnal,  but  it 
was  not  from  this,  or  from  the  lines-  of  maturity 
graven  on  the  passing  prettiness  of  her  little  face, 
that  the  notion  and  the  name  of  Mother-Bird 
suggested  itself.  She  became  known  as  the 
Mother-Bird  to  the  tender  ironic  fancy  of  the 
earliest,  if  not  the  latest,  of  her  friends,  because 
she  was  slight  and  small,  and  like  a  bird  in  her 
eager  movements,  and  because  she  spoke  so  in 
stantly  and  so  constantly  of  her  children  in  Dres 
den:  before  you  knew  anything  else  of  her  you 
knew  that  she  was  going  out  to  them. 

She  was  quite  alone,  and  she  gave  the  sense 
of  claiming  their  protection,  and  sheltering  her 
self  in  the  fact  of  them.  When  she  mentioned  her 


THE  MOTHER-BIRD 

daughters  she  had  the  effect  of  feeling  herself 
chaperoned  by  them.  You  could  not  go  behind 
them  and  find  her  wanting  in  the  social  guarantees 
which  women  on  steamers,  if  not  men,  exact  of 
lonely  birds  of  passage  who  are  not  mother-birds. 
One  must  respect  the  convention  by  which  she 
safeguarded  herself  and  tried  to  make  good  her 
standing  ;  yet  it  did  not  lastingly  avail  her  with 
other  birds  of  passage,  so  far  as  they  were 
themselves  mother-birds,  or  sometimes  only  maid 
en-birds.  The  day  had  not  ended  before  they 
began  to  hold  her  off  by  slight  liftings  of  their 
wings  and  rufflings  of  their  feathers,  by  quick, 
evasive  flutterings,  by  subtle  ignorances  of  her 
approach,  which  convinced  no  one  but  themselves 
that  they  had  not  seen  her.  She  sailed  with  the 
sort  of  acquaintance-in-common  which  every  one 
shares  on  a  ship  leaving  port,  when  people  are 
confused  by  the  kindness  of  friends  coming  to 
see  them  off  after  sending  baskets  of  fruit  and 
sheaves  of  flowers,  and  scarcely  know  what  they  are 
doing  or  saying.  But  when  the  ship  was  abreast 
of  Fire  Island,  and  the  pilot  had  gone  over  the 
side,  these  provisional  intimacies  of  the  parting 
hour  began  to  restrict  themselves.  Then  the 
Mother-Bird  did  not  know  half  the  women  she 
had  known  at  the  pier,  or  quite  all  the  men. 
It  was  not  that  she  did  anything  obvious  to 
152 


THE  MOTHER-BIRD 

forfeit  this  knowledge.  Her  behavior  was  if  any 
thing  too  exemplary ;  it  might  be  thought  to  form 
a  reproach  to  others.  Perhaps  it  was  the  unsea 
sonable  band  of  violets  around  her  hat-brim; 
perhaps  it  was  the  vernal  gaiety  of  her  dress; 
perhaps  it  was  the  uncertainty  of  her  anxious  eyes, 
which  presumed  while  they  implored.  A  mother- 
bird  must  not  hover  too  confidently,  too  appeal- 
ingly,  near  coveys  whose  preoccupations  she  does 
not  share.  It  might  have  been  her  looking  and 
dressing  younger  than  nature  justified;  at  forty 
one  must  not  look  thirty;  in  November  one  must 
not,  even  involuntarily,  wear  the  things  of  May 
if  one  would  have  others  believe  in  one's  devotion 
to  one's  children  in  Dresden;  one  alleges  in  vain 
one's  impatience  to  join  them  as  grounds  for 
joining  groups  or  detached  persons  who  have 
begun  to  write  home  to  their  children  in  New 
York  or  Boston. 

The  very  readiness  of  the  Mother-Bird  to  give 
security  by  the  mention  of  well-known  names,  to 
offer  proof  of  her  social  solvency  by  the  eager  cor 
rectness  of  her  behavior,  created  reluctance  around 
her.  Some  would  not  have  her  at  all  from  the 
first;  others,  who  had  partially  or  conditionally 
accepted  her,  returned  her  upon  her  hands  and 
withdrew  from  the  negotiation.  More  and  more 
she  found  herself  outside  that  hard  woman- 


THE  MOTHER-BIRD 

world,  and  trying  less  and  less  to  beat  her  way 
into  it. 

The  women  may  have  known  her  better  even 
than  she  knew  herself,  and  it  may  have  been 
through  ignorance  greater  than  her  own  that  the 
men  were  more  acquiescent.  But  the  men  too 
were  not  so  acquiescent,  or  not  at  all,  as  time 
passed. 

It  would  be  hard  to  fix  the  day,  the  hour,  far 
harder  the  moment,  when  the  Mother-Bird  began 
to  disappear  from  the  drawing-room  and  to  ap 
pear  in  the  smoking-room,  or  say  whether  she 
passed  from  the  one  to  the  other  in  a  voluntary 
exile  or  by  the  rigor  of  the  women's  unwritten 
law.  Still,  from  time  to  time  she  was  seen  in 
their  part  of  the  ship,  after  she  was  also  seen 
where  the  band  of  violets  showed  strange  and  sad 
through  veils  of  smoke  that  were  not  dense  enough 
to  hide  her  poor,  pretty  little  face,  with  its  faded 
blue  eyes  and  wistful  mouth.  There  she  passed 
by  quick  transition  from  the  conversation  of  the 
graver  elderly  smokers  to  the  loud  laughter  of 
two  birds  of  prey  who  became  her  comrades,  or 
such  friends  as  birds  like  them  can  be  to  birds 
like  her. 

From  anything  she  had  said  or  done  there  was 
no  reason  for  her  lapse  from  the  women  and  the 
better  men  to  such  men;  for  her  transition  from 

i54 


THE  MOTHER-BIRD 

the  better  sort  of  women  there  was  no  reason  ex 
cept  that  it  happened.  Whether  she  attached 
herself  to  the  birds  of  prey,  or  they  to  her,  by 
that  instinct  which  enables  birds  of  all  kinds  to 
know  themselves  of  a  feather  remained  a  touch 
ing  question. 

There  remained  to  the  end  the  question  whether 
she  was  of  a  feather  with  them,  or  whether  it  was 
by  some  mischance,  or  by  some  such  stress  of  the 
elements  as  drives  birds  of  any  feather  to  flock 
with  birds  of  any  other.  To  the  end  there  re 
mained  a  distracted  and  forsaken  innocence  in 
her  looks.  It  was  imaginable  that  she  had  made 
overtures  to  the  birds  of  prey  because  she  had 
made  overtures  to  every  one  else;  she  was  always 
seeking  rather  than  sought,  and  her  acceptance 
with  them  was  as  deplorable  as  her  refusal  by 
better  birds.  Often  they  were  seen  without  her, 
when  they  had  that  look  of  having  escaped,  which 
others  wore;  but  she  was  not  often  seen  without 
them. 

There  is  not  much  walking-weather  on  a  No 
vember  passage,  and  she  was  seen  less  with  them 
in  the  early  dark  outdoors  than  in  the  late  light 
within,  by  which  she  wavered  a  small  form  through 
the  haze  of  their  cigars  in  the  smoking-room,  or 
in  the  grill-room,  where  she  showed  in  faint  eclipse 
through  the  fumes  of  the  broiling  and  frying,  or 

iS5 


THE  MOTHER-BIRD 

through  the  vapors  of  the  hot  whiskies.  The 
birds  of  prey  were  then  heard  laughing,  but 
whether  at  her  or  with  her  it  must  have  been 
equally  sorrowful  to  learn. 

Perhaps  they  were  laughing  at  the  maternal 
fondness  which  she  had  used  for  introduction  to 
the  general  acquaintance  lost  almost  in  the  mo 
ment  of  winning  it.  She  seemed  not  to  resent 
their  laughter,  though  she  seemed  not  to  join 
in  it.  The  worst  of  her  was  the  company  she  kept ; 
but  since  no  better  would  allow  her  to  keep  it, 
you  could  not  confidently  say  she  would  not  have 
liked  the  best  company  on  board.  At  the  same 
time  you  could  not  have  said  she  would;  you  could 
not  have  been  sure  it  would  not  have  bored  her. 
Doubtless  these  results  are  not  solely  the  sport 
of  chance;  they  must  be  somewhat  the  event 
of  choice  if  not  of  desert. 

For  anything  you  could  have  sworn,  the  Mother- 
Bird  would  have  liked  to  be  as  good  as  the  best. 
But  since  it  was  not  possible  for  her  to  be  good 
in  the  society  of  the  best,  she  could  only  be  good 
in  that  of  the  worst.  It  was  to  be  hoped  that  the 
birds  of  prey  were  not  cruel  to  her;  that  their 
mockery  was  never  unkind  if  ever  it  was  mockery. 
The  cruelty  which  must  come  came  when  they 
began  to  be  seen  less  and  less  with  her,  even  at 
the  late  suppers,  through  the  haze  of  their  cigars 

156 


THE  MOTHER-BIRD 

and  the  smoke  of  the  broiling  and  frying,  and  the 
vapors  of  the  hot  whiskies.  Then  it  was  the 
sharpest  pang  of  all  to  meet  her  wandering  up 
and  down  the  ship's  promenades,  or  leaning  on 
the  rail  and  looking  dimly  out  over  the  foam- 
whitened  black  sea.  It  is  the  necessity  of  birds 
of  prey  to  get  rid  of  other  birds  when  they  are 
tired  of  them,  and  it  had  doubtless  come  to  that. 
One  night,  the  night  before  getting  into  port, 
when  the  curiosity  which  always  followed  her 
with  grief  failed  of  her  in  the  heightened  hilarity 
of  the  smoking-room,  where  the  last  bets  on  the 
ship's  run  were  making,  it  found  her  alone  beside 
a  little  iron  table,  of  those  set  in  certain  nooks 
outside  the  grill-room.  There  she  sat  with  no  one 
near,  where  the  light  from  within  fell  palely  upon 
her.  The  boon  birds  of  prey,  with  whom  she  had 
been  supping,  had  abandoned  her,  and  she  was 
supporting  her  cheek  on  the  small  hand  of  the 
arm  that  rested  on  the  table.  She  leaned  for 
ward,  and  swayed  with  the  swaying  ship;  the 
violets  in  her  bolero-toque  quivered  with  the  vi 
brations  of  the  machinery.  She  was  asleep,  poor 
Mother-Bird,  and  it  would  have  been  impossible 
not  to  wish  her  dreams  were  kind. 


THE   AMIGO 


XI 
THE  AMIGO 

LJIS  name  was  really  Perez  Armando  Aldeano, 
*  *  but  in  the  end  everybody  called  him  the 
amigo,  because  that  was  the  endearing  term  by 
which  he  saluted  all  the  world.  There  was  a 
time  when  the  children  called  him  "Span-yard" 
in  their  games,  for  he  spoke  no  tongue  but  Span 
ish,  and  though  he  came  from  Ecuador,  and  was 
no  more  a  Spaniard  than  they  were  English,  he 
answered  to  the  call  of  "Span-yard!"  whenever 
he  heard  it.  He  came  eagerly  in  the  hope  of  fun, 
and  all  the  more  eagerly  if  there  was  a  hope  of 
mischief  in  the  fun.  Still,  to  discerning  spirits, 
he  was  always  the  amigo,  for,  when  he  hailed  you 
so,  you  could  not  help  hailing  him  so  again,  and 
whatever  mock  he  put  upon  you  afterward,  you 
were  his  secret  and  inalienable  friend. 

The  moment  of  my  own  acceptance  in  this 
quality  came  in  the  first  hours  of  expansion  fol 
lowing  our  getting  to  sea  after  long  detention  in 
ii  161 


THE  AMIGO 

the  dock  by  fog.  A  small  figure  came  flying 
down  the  dock  with  outspread  arms,  and  a  joy 
ful  cry  of  "Ah,  amigo!"  as  if  we  were  now  meeting 
unexpectedly  after  a  former  intimacy  in  Bogota; 
and  the  amigo  clasped  me  round  the  middle  to 
his  bosom,  or  more  strictly  speaking,  his  brow, 
which  he  plunged  into  my  waistcoat.  He  was 
clad  in  a  long  black  overcoat,  and  a  boy's  knee- 
pants,  and  under  the  peak  of  his  cap  twinkled 
the  merriest  black  eyes  that  ever  lighted  up  a 
smiling  face  of  olive  hue.  Thereafter,  he  was 
more  and  more,  with  the  thinness  of  his  small 
black  legs,  and  his  habit  of  hopping  up  and  down, 
and  dancing  threateningly  about,  with  mischief 
latent  in  every  motion,  like  a  crow  which  in  being 
tamed  has  acquired  one  of  the  worst  traits  of 
civilization.  He  began  babbling  and  gurgling  in 
Spanish,  and  took  my  hand  for  a  stroll  about  the 
ship,  and  from  that  time  we  were,  with  certain 
crises  of  disaffection,  firm  allies. 

There  were  others  whom  he  hailed  and  adopted 
his  friends,  whose  legs  he  clung  about  and  im 
peded  in  their  walks,  or  whom  he  required  to  toss 
him  into  the  air  as  they  passed,  but  I  flattered 
myself  that  he  had  a  peculiar,  because  a  primary, 
esteem  for  myself.  I  have  thought  it  might  be 
that,  Bogota  being  said  to  be  a  very  literary 
capital,  as  those  things  go  in  South  America,  he 

162 


THE  AMIGO 

was  mystically  aware  of  a  common  ground  be 
tween  us,  wider  and  deeper  than  that  of  his  other 
friendships.  But  it  may  have  been  somewhat 
owing  to  my  inviting  him  to  my  cabin  to  choose 
such  portion  as  he  would  of  a  lady-cake  sent  us 
on  shipboard  at  the  last  hour.  He  prattled  and 
chuckled  over  it  in  the  soft  gutturals  of  his  parrot- 
like  Spanish,  and  rushed  up  on  deck  to  eat  the 
frosting  off  in  the  presence  of  his  small  com 
panions,  and  to  exult  before  them  in  the  exploita 
tion  of  a  novel  pleasure.  Yet  it  could  not  have 
been  the  lady-cake  which  lastingly  endeared  me 
to  him,  for  by  the  next  day  he  had  learned  pru 
dence  and  refused  it  without  withdrawing  his 
amity. 

This,  indeed,  was  always  tempered  by  what 
seemed  a  constitutional  irony,  and  he  did  not 
impart  it  to  any  one  without  some  time  making 
his  friend  feel  the  edge  of  his  practical  humor. 
It  was  not  long  before  the  children  whom  he  gath 
ered  to  his  heart  had  each  and  all  suffered  some 
fall  or  bump  or  bruise  which,  if  not  of  his  inten 
tion,  was  of  his  infliction,  and  which  was  regretted 
with  such  winning  archness  that  the  very  mothers 
of  them  could  not  resist  him,  and  his  victims  dried 
their  tears  to  follow  him  with  glad  cries  of  "Span- 
yard,  Span-yard!"  Injury  at  his  hands  was  a 
favor;  neglect  was  the  only  real  grievance.  He 

163 


THE  AMIGO 

went  about  rolling  his  small  black  head,  and  dart 
ing  roguish  lightnings  froitTunder  his  thick-fringed 
eyes,  and  making  more  trouble  with  a  more  en 
ticing  gaiety  than  all  the  other  people  on  the 
ship  put  together. 

The  truth  must  be  owned  that  the  time  came, 
long  before  the  end  of  the  voyage,  when  it  was 
felt  that  in  the  interest  of  the  common  welfare, 
something  must  be  done  about  the  amigo.  At  the 
conversational  end  of  the  doctor's  table,  where  he 
was  discussed  whenever  the  racks  were  not  on, 
and  the  talk  might  have  languished  without  their 
inspiration,  his  badness  was  debated  at  every 
meal.  Some  declared  him  the  worst  boy  in  the 
world,  and  held  against  his  half-hearted  defenders 
that  something  ought  to  be  done  about  him;  and 
one  was  left  to  imagine  all  the  darker  fate  for  him 
because  there  was  nothing  specific  in  these  con 
victions.  He  could  not  be  thrown  overboard, 
and  if  he  had  been  put  in  irons  probably  his  worst 
enemies  at  the  conversational  end  of  the  table 
would  have  been  the  first  to  intercede  for  him. 
It  is  not  certain,  however,  that  their  prayers 
would  have  been  effective  with  the  captain,  if 
that  officer,  framed  for  comfort  as  well  as  com 
mand,  could  have  known  how  accurately  the 
amigo  had  dramatized  his  personal  presence  by 
throwing  himself  back,  and  clasping  his  hands  a 

164 


THE  AMIGO 

foot  in  front  of  his  small  stomach,  and  making  a 
few  tilting  paces  forward. 

The  amigo  had  a  mimic  gift  which  he  liked  to 
exercise  when  he  could  find  no  intelligible  language 
for  the  expression  of  his  ironic  spirit.  Being  for 
bidden  visits  in  and  out  of  season  to  certain  state 
rooms  whose  inmates  feigned  a  wish  to  sleep,  he 
represented  in  what  grotesque  attitudes  of  sono 
rous  slumber  they  passed  their  day,  and  he  spared 
neither  age  nor  sex  in  these  graphic  shows.  When 
age  refused  one  day  to  go  up  on  deck  with  him 
and  pleaded  in  such  Spanish  as  it  could  pluck 
up  from  its  past  studies  that  it  was  too  old,  he 
laughed  it  to  scorn.  "You  are  not  old,"  he  said. 
"Why?"  the  flattered  dotard  inquired.  "Be 
cause  you  smile,"  and  that  seemed  reason  enough 
for  one's  continued  youth.  It  was  then  that  the 
amigo  gave  his  own  age,  carefully  telling  the  Span 
ish  numerals  over,  and  explaining  further  by 
holding  up  both  hands  with  one  finger  shut  in. 
But  he  had  the  subtlety  of  centuries  in  his  nine 
years,  and  he  penetrated  the  ship  everywhere 
with  his  arch  spirit  of  mischief.  It  was  mischief 
always  in  the  interest  of  the  good-fellowship  which 
he  offered  impartially  to  old  and  young;  and  if 
it  were  mere  frolic,  with  no  ulterior  object,  he  did 
not  care  at  all  how  old  or  young  his  playmate  was. 
This  endeared  him  naturally  to  every  age;  and 

165 


THE  AMIGO 

the  little  blond  German-American  boy  dried  his 
tears  from  the  last  accident  inflicted  on  him  by 
the  amigo  to  recall  him  by  tender  entreaties  of 
"Span-yard,  Span-yard!"  while  the  eldest  of  his 
friends  could  not  hold  out  against  him  more  than 
two  days  in  the  strained  relations  following  upon 
the  amigo' s  sweeping  him  down  the  back  with  a 
toy  broom  employed  by  the  German-American 
boy  to  scrub  the  scuppers.  This  was  not  so 
much  an  injury  as  an  indignity,  but  it  was  resented 
as  an  indignity,  in  spite  of  many  demure  glances 
of  propitiation  from  the  amigo' s  ironical  eyes  and 
murmurs  of  inarticulate  apology  as  he  passed. 

He  was,  up  to  a  certain  point,  the  kindest  and 
truest  of  amigos;  then  his  weird  seizure  came,  and 
the  baby  was  spilled  out  of  the  carriage  he  had 
been  so  benevolently  pushing  up  and  down;  or 
the  second  officer's  legs,  as  he  walked  past  with 
the  prettiest  girl  on  board,  were  hit  with  the  stick 
that  the  amigo  had  been  innocently  playing  shuffle- 
board  with;  or  some  passenger  was  taken  un 
awares  in  his  vanity  or  infirmity  and  made  to 
contribute  to  the  amigo' s  passion  for  active  amuse 
ment. 

At  this  point  I  ought  to  explain  that  the  amigo 
was  not  traveling  alone  from  Ecuador  to  Paris, 
where  it  was  said  he  was  to  rejoin  his  father. 
At  meal-times,  and  at  other  rare  intervals,  he  was 

166 


THE  AMIGO 

seen  to  be  in  the  charge  of  a  very  dark  and  very 
silent  little  man,  with  intensely  black  eyes  and 
mustache,  clad  in  raven  hues  from  his  head  to  the 
delicate  feet  on  which  he  wore  patent-leather 
shoes.  With  him  the  amigo  walked  gravely  up 
and  down  the  deck,  and  behaved  decorously  at 
table;  and  we  could  not  reconcile  the  apparent 
affection  between  the  two  with  a  theory  we  had 
that  the  amigo  had  been  found  impossible  in  his 
own  country,  and  had  been  sent  out  of  Ecuador 
by  a  decree  of  the  government,  or  perhaps  a  vote 
of  the  whole  people.  The  little,  dark,  silent  man, 
in  his  patent-leather  boots,  had  not  the  air  of 
conveying  a  state  prisoner  into  exile,  and  we 
wondered  in  vain  what  the  tie  between  him 
and  the  amigo  was.  He  might  have  been  his 
tutor,  or  his  uncle.  He  exercised  a  quite  mystical 
control  over  the  amigo,  who  was  exactly  obedient 
to  him  in  everything,  and  would  not  look  aside 
at  you  when  in  his  keeping.  We  reflected  with 
awe  and  pathos  that,  as  they  roomed  together,  it 
was  his  privilege  to  see  the  amigo  asleep,  when 
that  little,  very  kissable  black  head  rested  inno 
cently  on  the  pillow,  and  the  busy  brain  within  it 
was  at  peace  with  the  world  which  formed  its 
pleasure  and  its  prey  in  waking. 

It  would  be  idle  to  represent  that  the  amigo 
played  his  pranks  upon  that  shipload  of  long- 

167 


THE  AMIGO 

suffering  people  with  final  impunity.  The  time 
came  when  they  not  only  said  something  must 
be  done,  but  actually  did  something.  It  was 
by  the  hand  of  one  of  the  amigo' s  sweetest  and 
kindest  friends,  namely,  that  elderly  captain,  off 
duty,  who  was  going  out  to  be  assigned  his  ship 
in  Hamburg.  From  the  first  he  had  shown  the 
affectionate  tenderness  for  the  amigo  which  was 
felt  by  all  except  some  obdurate  hearts  at  the 
conversational  end  of  the  table;  and  it  must 
have  been  with  a  loving  interest  in  the  amigo's 
ultimate  well-being  that,  taking  him  in  an  ecstasy 
of  mischief,  he  drew  the  amigo  face  downward 
across  his  knees,  and  bestowed  the  chastisement 
which  was  morally  a  caress.  He  dismissed  him 
with  a  smile  in  which  the  amigo  read  the  good 
understanding  that  existed  unimpaired  between 
them,  and  accepted  his  correction  with  the  same 
affection  as  that  which  had  given  it.  He  shook 
himself  and  ran  off  with  an  enjoyment  of  the  joke 
as  great  as  that  of  any  of  the  spectators  and  far 
more  generous. 

In  fact  there  was  nothing  mean  in  the  amigo. 
Impish  he  was,  or  might  be,  but  only  in  the  sort 
of  the  crow  or  the  parrot;  there  was  no  malevo 
lence  in  his  fine  malice.  One  fancied  him  in  his 
adolescence  taking  part  in  one  of  the  frequent 
revolutions  of  his  continent,  but  humorously,  not 

1 68 


THE  AMIGO 

homicidally.  He  would  like  to  alarm  the  other 
faction,  and  perhaps  drive  it  from  power,  or  over 
set  it  from  its  official  place,  but  if  he  had  the  say 
there  would  be  no  bringing  the  vanquished  out 
into  the  plaza  to  be  shot.  He  may  now  have 
been  on  his  way  to  France  ultimately  to  study 
medicine,  which  seems  to  be  preliminary  to  a 
high  political  career  in  South  America;  but  in  the 
mean  time  we  feared  for  him  in  that  republic  of 
severely  regulated  subordinations. 

We  thought  with  pathos  of  our  early  parting 
with  him,  as  we  approached  Plymouth  and  tried 
to  be  kodaked  with  him,  considering  it  an  honor 
and  pleasure.  He  so  far  shared  our  feeling  as 
to  consent,  but  he  insisted  on  wearing  a  pair  of 
glasses  which  had  large  eyes  painted  on  them, 
and  on  being  taken  in  the  act  of  inflating  a  toy 
balloon.  Probably,  therefore,  the  likeness  would 
not  be  recognized  in  Bogota,  but  it  will  always 
be  endeared  to  us  by  the  memory  of  the  many 
mockeries  suffered  from  him.  There  were  other 
friends  whom  we  left  on  the  ship,  notably  those 
of  the  conversational  end  of  the  table,  who  thought 
him  simply  a  bad  boy;  but  there  were  none  of 
such  peculiar  appeal  as  he,  when  he  stood  by  the 
guard,  opening  and  shutting  his  hand  in  ironical 
adieu,  and  looking  smaller  and  smaller  as  our 
tender  drifted  away  and  the  vast  liner  loomed 

169 


THE  AMIGO 

immense  before  us.  He  may  have  contributed 
to  its  effect  of  immensity  by  the  smallness  of  his 
presence,  or  it  may  have  dwarfed  him.  No  mat 
ter;  he  filled  no  slight  space  in  our  lives  while 
he  lasted.  Now  that  he  is  no  longer  there,  was 
he  really  a  bad  little  boy,  merely  and  simply? 
Heaven  knows,  which  alone  knows  good  boys 
from  bad. 


BLACK    CROSS    FARM 


XII 

BLACK  CROSS  FARM 

(To  F.  S.) 

A?TER  full  many  a  mutual  delay 
My  friend  and  I  at  last  fixed  on  a  day 
For  seeing  Black  Cross  Farm,  which  he  had  long 
Boasted  the  fittest  theme  for  tale  or  song 
In  all  that  charming  region  round  about: 
Something  that  must  not  really  be  left  out 
Of  the  account  of  things  to  do  for  me. 
It  was  a  teasing  bit  of  mystery, 
He  said,  which  he  and  his  had  tried  in  vain, 
Ever  since  they  had  found  it,  to  explain. 
The  right  way  was  to  happen,  as  they  did, 
Upon  it  in  the  hills  where  it  was  hid; 
But  chance  could  not  be  always  trusted,  quite, 
You  might  not  happen  on  it,  though  you  might; 
Encores  were  usually  objected  to 
By  chance.     The  next  best  thing  that  we  could  do 
Was  in  his  carryall,  to  start  together, 
And    trust   that    somehow    favoring    wind    and 
weather, 


BLACK  CROSS  FARM 

With  the  eccentric  progress  of  his  horse, 
Would  so  far  drift  us  from  our  settled  course 
That  we  at  least  could  lose  ourselves,  if  not 
Find  the  mysterious  object  that  we  sought. 
So  one  blithe  morning  of  the  ripe  July 
We  fared,  by  easy  stages,  toward  the  sky 
That  rested  one  rim  of  its  turquoise  cup 
Low  on  the  distant  sea,  and,  tilted  up, 
The  other  on  the  irregular  hilltops.     Sweet 
The  sun  and  wind  that  joined  to  cool  and  heat 
The  air  to  one  delicious  temperature; 
And  over  the  smooth-cropt  mowing-pieces  pure 
The  pine-breath,  borrowing  their  spicy  scent 
In  barter  for  the  balsam  that  it  lent! 
And  when  my  friend  handed  the  reins  to  me, 
And  drew  a  fuming  match  along  his  knee, 
And,  lighting  his  cigar,  began  to  talk, 
I  let  the  old  horse  lapse  into  a  walk 
From  his  perfunctory  trot,  content  to  listen, 
Amid  that  leafy  rustle  and  that  glisten 
Of  field,  and  wood,  and  ocean,  rapt  afar, 
From  every  trouble  of  our  anxious  star. 
From  time  to  time,  between  effect  and  cause 
In  this  or  that,  making  a  questioning  pause, 
My  friend  peered  round  him  while  he  feigned  a  gay 
Hope  that  we  might  have  taken  the  wrong  way 
At  the  last  turn,  and  then  let  me  push  on, 
Or  the  old  horse  rather,  slanting  hither  and  yon, 


BLACK  CROSS  FARM 

And  never  in  the  middle  of  the  track, 
Except  when  slanting  off  or  slanting  back. 
He  talked,  I  listened,  while  we  wandered  by 
The  scanty  fields  of  wheat  and  oats  and  rye, 
With  patches  of  potatoes  and  of  corn, 
And  now  and  then  a  garden  spot  forlorn, 
Run  wild  where  once  a  house  had  stood,  or  where 
An  empty  house  yet  stood,  and  seemed  to  stare 
Upon  us  blindly  from  the  twisted  glass 
Of  windows  that  once  let  no  wayfarer  pass 
Unseen  of  children  dancing  at  the  pane, 
And  vanishing  to  reappear  again, 
Pulling  their  mother  with  them  to  the  sight. 
Still  we  kept  on,  with  turnings  left  and  right, 
Past  farmsteads  grouped  in  cheerful  neighbor 
hoods, 

Or  solitary;   then  through  shadowy  woods 
Of  pine  or  birch,  until  the  road,  grass-grown, 
Had  given  back  to  Nature  all  her  own 
Save  a  faint  wheel-trace,  that  along  the  slope, 
Rain-gullied,   seemed    to    stop    and    doubt   and 

grope, 

And  then  quite  ceased,  as  if  't  had  turned  and  fled 
Out  of  the  forest  into  which  it  led, 
And  left  us  at  the  gate  whose  every  bar 
Was  nailed  against  us.     But,  "Oh,  here  we  are!'* 
My  friend  cried  joyously.     "At  last,  at  last!" 
And  making  our  horse  superfluously  fast, 


BLACK  CROSS  FARM 

He  led  the  way  onward  by  what  had  been 
A  lane,  now  hid  by  weeds  and  briers  between 
Meadows  scarce  worth  the  mowing,  to  a  space 
Shaped  as  by  Nature  for  the  dwelling-place 
Of  kindly  human  life:   a  small  plateau 
Open  to  the  heaven  that  seemed  bending  low 
In  liking  for  it.     There  beneath  a  roof 
Still  against  winter  and  summer  weather-proof, 
With  walls  and  doors  and  windows  perfect  yet, 
Between  its  garden  and  its  graveyard  set, 
Stood    the    old   homestead,    out   of   which   had 

perished 

The  home  whose  memory  it  dumbly  cherished, 
And  which,  when  at  our  push  the  door  swung  wide, 
We  might  have  well  imagined  to  have  died 
And  had  its  funeral  the  day  before: 
So  clean  and  cold  it  was  from  floor  to  floor, 
So  lifelike  and  so  deathlike,  with  the  thrill 
Of  hours  when  life  and  death  encountered  still 
Passionate  in  it.     They  that  lay  below 
The  tangled  grasses  or  the  drifted  snow, 
Husband  and  wife,  mother  and  little  one, 
From  that  sad  house  less  utterly  were  gone 
Than  they  that  living  had  abandoned  it. 
In  moonless  nights  their  Absences  might  flit, 
Homesick,  from  room  to  room,  or  dimly  sit 
Around  its  fireless  hearths,  or  haunt  the  rose 
And  lily  in  the  neglected  garden  close; 

176 


BLACK  CROSS  FARM 

But  they  whose  feet  had  borne  them  from  the 

door 

Would  pass  the  footworn  threshold  nevermore. 
We  read  the  moss-grown  names  upon  the  tombs, 
With  lighter  melancholy  than  the  glooms 
Of  the  dead  house  shadowed  us  with,  and  thence 
Turning,  my  heart  was  pierced  with  more  intense 
Suggestion  of  a  mystical  dismay, 
As  in  the  brilliance  of  the  summer  day 
We  faced  the  vast  gray  barn.     The  house  was  old, 
Though  so  well  kept,  as  age  by  years  is  told 
In  our  young  land;  but  the  barn,  gray  and  vast, 
Stood  new  and  straight  and  strong  —  all   bat 
tened  fast 

At  every  opening;   and  where  once  the  mow 
Had  yawned  wide-windowed,  on  the  sheathing 

now 

A  Cross  was  nailed,  the  bigness  of  a  man, 
Aslant  from  left  to  right,  athwart  the  span, 
And    painted  black    as    paint    could    make    it. 

Hushed, 

I  stood,  while  manifold  conjecture  rushed 
To  this  point  and  to  that  point,  and  then  burst 
In  the  impotent  questionings  rejected  first. 
What  did  it  mean?    Ah,  that  no  one  could  tell. 
Who  put  it  there?    That  was  unknown  as  well. 
Was  there  no  legend?    My  friend  knew  of  none. 
No  neighborhood  story?    He  had  sought  for  one 

12  177 


BLACK  CROSS  FARM 

In  vain.     Did  he  imagine  it  accident, 
With  nothing  really  implied  or  meant 
By  the  boards  set  in  that  way?    It  might  be, 
But  I  could  answer  that  as  well  as  he. 
Then  (desperately)  what  did  he  guess  it  was: 
Something  of  purpose,  or  without  a  cause 
Other  than  chance?    He  slowly  shook  his  head, 
And  with  his  gaze  fixed  on  the  symbol  said: 
"We  have  quite  ceased  from  guessing  or  sur 
mising, 

For  all  our  several  and  joint  devising 
Has  left  us  finally  where  I  must  leave  you. 
But  now  I  think  it  is  your  part  to  do 
Yourself  some  guessing.    I  hoped  you  might  bring 
A  fresh  mind  to  the  riddle's  unraveling. 
Come!" 

And  thus  challenged  I  could  not  deny 
The  sort  of  right  he  had  to  have  me  try; 
And  yielding,  I  began — instinctively 
Proceeding  by  exclusion:    "We  agree 
It  was  not  put  there  as  a  pious  charm 
To  keep  the  abandoned  property  from  harm? 
The  owner  could  have  been  no  Catholic; 
And  yet  it  was  no  sacrilegious  trick 
To  make  folks  wonder;    and  it  was  not  chance 
Assuredly  that  set  those  boards  askance 
In  that  shape,  or  before  or  after,  so 
Painted  them  to  that  coloring  of  woe. 

178 


BLACK  CROSS  FARM 

Do  you  suppose,  then,  that  it  could  have  been 
Some  secret  sorrow  or  some  secret  sin, 
That  tried  to  utter  or  to  expiate 
Itself  in  that  way:    some  unhappy  hate 
Turned  to  remorse,  or  some  life-rending  grief 
That  could  not  find  in  years  or  tears  relief? 
Who  lived  here  last?" 

"Ah,"  my  friend  made  reply, 
"You  know  as  much  concerning  that  as  I. 
All  I  could  tell  is  what  those  gravestones  tell, 
And  they  have  told  it  all  to  you  as  well. 
The  names,  the  dates,  the  curious  epitaphs 
At   whose   quaint   phrase    one    either    sighs   or 

laughs, 

Just  as  one's  heart  or  head  happens  to  be 
Hollow  or  not,  are  there  for  each  to  see. 
But  I  believe  they  have  nothing  to  reveal: 
No  wrong  to  publish,  no  shame  to  conceal." 

"And  yet  that  Cross!"     I  turned  at  his  reply, 
Fixing  the  silent  symbol  with  my  eye, 
Insistently.     "And  you  consent,"  I  said, 
"To  leave  the  enigma  uninterpreted?" 

"Why,  no,"  he  faltered,  then  went  on:  "Suppose 
That  some  one  that  had  known  the  average  woes 
Of  human  nature,  finding  that  the  load 
Was  overheavy  for  him  on  life's  road, 
Had  wished  to  leave  some  token  in  this  Cross, 
Of  what  had  been  his  gain  and  been  his  loss, 

179 


BLACK  CROSS  FARM 

Of  what  had  been  his  suffering  and  of  what 
Had  also  been  the  solace  of  his  lot? 
Whoever  that  unknown  brother-man  might  be, 
I  think  he  must  have  been  like  you  and  me, 
Who  bear  our  Cross,  and  when  we  fail  at  length, 
Bow  down  and  pray  to  it  for  greater  strength." 

I  mused,  and  as  I  mused,  I  seemed  to  find 
The  fancy  more  and  still  more  to  my  mind. 

"Well,  let  it  go  at  that!    I  think,  for  me, 
I  like  that  better  than  some  tragedy 
Of  clearer  physiognomy,  which  were 
In  being  more  definite  the  vulgarer. 
For  us,  what,  after  all,  would  be  the  gain 
Of  making  the  elusive  meaning  plain? 
I  really  think,  if  I  were  you  and  yours, 
I  would  not  lift  the  veil  that  now  obscures 
The  appealing  fact,  lest  I  should  spoil  the  charm 
Deeding  me  for  my  own  the  Black  Cross  Farm." 

"A  good  suggestion!    I  am  glad,"  said  he, 
"We  have  always  practised  your  philosophy." 

He  smiled,  we  laughed;   we  sighed  and  turned 

away, 

And  left  the  mystery  to  the  summer  day 
That  made  as  if  it  understood,  and  could 
Have  read  the  riddle  to  us  if  it  would: 
The  wide,  wise  sky,  the  clouds  that  on  the  grass 
Let   their   vague   shadows   dreamlike   trail   and 
pass; 

180 


BLACK  CROSS  FARM 

The  conscious  woods,  the  stony  meadows  growing 
Up  to  birch  pastures,  where  we  heard  the  lowing 
Of  one  disconsolate  cow.     All  the  warm  afternoon, 
Lulled  in  a  reverie  by  the  myriad  tune 
Of  insects,  and  the  chirp  of  songless  birds, 
Forgetful  of  the  spring-time's  lyric  words, 
Drowsed  round  us  while  we  tried  to  find  the  lane 
That  to  our  coming  feet  had  been  so  plain, 
And  lost  ourselves  among  the  sweetfern's  growth, 
And  thickets  of  young  pine-trees,  nothing  loath, 
Amidst  the  wilding  loveliness  to  stray, 
And  spend,  if  need  were,  looking  for  the  way, 
Whole  hours ;  but  blundered  into  the  right  course 
Suddenly,  and  came  out  upon  our  horse, 
Where  we  had  left  him — to  our  great  surprise, 
Stamping  and  switching  at  the  pestering  flies, 
But  not  apparently  anxious  to  depart, 
When  nearly  overturning  at  the  start, 
We  followed  down  that  evanescent  trace 
Which,  followed  up,  had  brought  us  to  the  place. 

Then,  all  the  wayside  scenes  reversing,  we 
Dropped  to  the  glimpses  of  the  distant  sea, 
Content  as  if  we  brought,  returning  thus, 
The  secret  of  the  Black  Cross  back  with  us. 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 


XIII 
THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

IT  had  long  been  the  notion  of  Frederick  Erlcort, 
who  held  it  playfully,  held  it  seriously,  accord 
ing  to  the  company  he  was  in,  that  there  might  be 
a  censorship  of  taste  and  conscience  in  literary 
matters  strictly  affiliated  with  the  retail  com 
merce  in  books.  When  he  first  began  to  propose 
it,  playfully,  seriously,  as  his  listener  chose,  he 
said  that  he  had  noticed  how  in  the  great  depart 
ment  stores  where  nearly  everything  to  supply 
human  need  was  sold,  the  shopmen  and  shop- 
women  seemed  instructed  by  the  ownership  or  the 
management  to  deal  in  absolute  good  faith  with 
the  customers,  and  not  to  misrepresent  the  qual 
ity,  the  make,  or  the  material  of  any  article  in 
the  slightest  degree.  A  thing  was  not  to  be  called 
silk  or  wool  when  it  was  partly  cotton;  it  was  not 
to  be  said  that  it  would  wash  when  it  would  not 
wash,  or  that  the  color  would  not  come  off  when 
it  would  come  off,  or  that  the  stuff  was  English 
or  French  when  it  was  American. 

185 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

When  Erlcort  once  noted  his  interest  in  the  fact 
to  a  floor-walker  whom  he  happened  to  find  at 
leisure,  the  floor- walker  said,  Yes,  that  was  so; 
and  the  house  did  it  because  it  was  business,  good 
business,  the  only  good  business.  He  was  instant 
ly  enthusiastic,  and  he  said  that  just  in  the  same 
way,  as  an  extension  of  its  good  faith  with  the 
public,  the  house  had  established  the  rule  of  taking 
back  any  article  which  a  customer  did  not  like, 
or  did  not  find  what  she  had  supposed  when  she 
got  it  home,  and  refunding  the  money.  This  was 
the  best  sort  of  business;  it  held  custom;  the 
woman  became  a  customer  for  life.  The  floor 
walker  laughed,  and  after  he  had  told  an  anxious 
applicant,  "Second  aisle  to  the  left,  lady;  three 
counters  back,"  he  concluded  to  Erlcort,  "I  say 
she  because  a  man  never  brings  a  thing  back  when 
he's  made  a  mistake;  but  a  woman  can  always 
blame  it  on  the  house.  That  so?" 

Erlcort  laughed  with  him,  and  in  going  out  he 
stopped  at  the  book-counter.  Rather  it  was  a 
bookstore,  and  no  small  one,  with  ranks  of  new 
books  covering  the  large  tables  and  mounting  to 
their  level  from  the  floor,  neatly  piled,  and  with 
shelves  of  complete  editions  and  soberer-looking 
volumes  stretching  along  the  wall  as  high  as  the 
ceiling.  "Do  you  happen  to  have  a  good  book — 
a  book  that  would  read  good,  I  mean — in  your 

186 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

stock  here?"  he  asked  the  neat  blonde  behind  the 
literary  barricade. 

"Well,  here's  a  book  that  a  good  many  are 
reading,"  she  answered,  with  prompt  interest  and 
a  smile  that  told  in  the  book's  favor;  it  was  a 
protectingly  filial  and  guardedly  ladylike  smile. 

"Yes,  but  is  it  a  book  worth  reading — worth  the 
money?" 

"Well,  I  don't  know  as  I'm  a  judge,"  the  kind 
little  blonde  replied.  She  added,  daringly,  "All 
I  can  say  is,  I  set  up  till  two  last  night  to  finish 
it." 

"And  you  advise  me  to  buy  it?" 

"Well,  we're  not  allowed  to  do  that,  exactly. 
I  can  only  tell  you  what  I  know." 

"But  if  I  take  it,  and  it  isn't  what  I  expected, 
I  can  return  it  and  get  my  money  back?" 

"That's  something  I  never  was  asked  before. 
Mr.  Jeffers!  Mr.  Jeffers!"  she  called  to  a  floor 
walker  passing  near;  and  when  he  stopped  and 
came  up  to  the  counter,  she  put  the  case  to  him. 

He  took  the  book  from  Erlcort's  hand  and 
examined  the  outside  of  it  curiously  if  not  critically. 
Then  he  looked  from  it  to  Erlcort,  and  said,  "Oh, 
how  do  you  do  again !  Well,  no,  sir;  I  don't  know 
as  we  could  do  that.  You  see,  you  would  have 
to  read  it  to  find  out  that  you  didn't  want  it,  and 
that  would  be  like  using  or  wearing  an  article, 

187 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

wouldn't  it?    We  couldn't  take  back  a  thing  that 
had  been  used  or  worn — heigh?" 

"But  you  might  have  some  means  of  knowing 
whether  a  book  is  good  or  not?" 

"Well,  yes,  we  might.  That's  a  point  we  have 
never  had  raised  before.  Miss  Prittiman,  haven't 
we  any  means  of  knowing  whether  a  book's  some 
thing  we  can  guarantee  or  not?" 

"Well,  Mr.  Jeffers,  there's  the  publisher's 
advertisement." 

"Why,  yes,  so  there  is!  And  a  respectable 
publisher  wouldn't  indorse  a  book  that  wasn't  the 
genuine  article,  would  he  now,  sir?" 

"He  mightn't,"  Erlcort  said,  as  if  he  felt  the 
force  of  the  argument. 

"And  there  are  the  notices  in  the  newspapers. 
They  ought  to  tell,"  Miss  Prittiman  added,  more 
convincingly.  "I  don't  know,"  she  said,  as  from 
a  sensitive  conscience,  "whether  there  have  been 
any  about  this  book  yet,  but  I  should  think  there 
would  be." 

"And  in  the  mean  time,  as  you  won't  guarantee 
the  book  so  that  I  can  bring  it  back  and  get  my 
money  if  I  find  it  worthless,  I  must  accept  the 
publisher's  word?"  Erlcort  pressed  further. 

"I  should  think  you  could  do  that,"  the  floor 
walker  suggested,  with  the  appearance  of  being 
tired. 

188 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

"Well,  I  think  I  will,  for  once,"  Erlcort  relented. 
"But  wait!  What  does  the  publisher  say?" 

"It's  all  printed  on  this  slip  inside,"  the  blonde 
said,  and  she  showed  it  as  she  took  the  book  from 
him.  "Shall  I  send  it?  Or  will  you—" 

"No,  no,  thank  you,  I'll  take  it  with  me. 
Let  me—" 

He  kept  the  printed  slip  and  began  to  read  it. 
The  blonde  wrapped  the  book  up  and  laid  it  with 
a  half-dollar  in  change  on  the  counter  before  Erl 
cort.  The  floor- walker  went  away;  Erlcort  heard 
him  saying,  "No,  madam;  toys  on  the  fifth  floor, 
at  the  extreme  rear,  left,"  while  he  lost  himself 
in  the  glowing  promises  of  the  publisher.  It  ap 
peared  that  the  book  he  had  just  bought  was  by 
a  perfectly  new  author,  an  old  lady  of  seventy 
who  had  never  written  a  novel  before,  and  might 
therefore  be  trusted  for  an  entire  freshness  of 
thought  and  feeling.  The  plot  was  of  a  gripping 
intensity;  the  characters  were  painted  with  large, 
bold  strokes,  and  were  of  an  unexampled  virility; 
the  story  was  packed  with  passion  from  cover  to 
cover;  and  the  reader  would  be  held  breathless 
by  the  author's  skill  in  working  from  the  tragic 
conditions  to  an  all-round  happy  conclusion. 

From  time  to  time  Erlcort  heard  the  gentle 
blonde  saying  such  things  as,  "Oh  yes;  it's  the 
best-seller,  all  right,"  and,  "All  I  can  say  is  I  set 

189 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

up  till  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  finish  it," 
and,  "Yes,  ma'am;  it's  by  a  new  writer;  a  very 
old  lady  of  seventy  who  is  just  beginning  to  write; 
well,  that's  what  I  heard." 

On  his  way  up-town  in  the  Subway  he  clung  to 
the  wonted  strap,  unsupported  by  anything  in  the 
romance  which  he  had  bought;  and  yet  he  could 
not  take  the  book  back  and  get  his  money,  or 
even  exchange  it  for  some  article  of  neckwear  or 
footwear.  In  his  extremity  he  thought  he  would 
try  giving  it  to  the  trainman  just  before  he  reached 
his  stop. 

1 1  You  want  to  give  it  to  me  ?  Well,  that's  some 
thing  that  never  happened  to  me  on  this  line  be 
fore.  I  guess  my  wife  will  like  it.  I — loopth 
Street!  Change  for  East  Brooklyn  and  the  Bronx!" 
the  guard  shouted,  and  he  let  Erlcort  out  of  the 
car,  the  very  first  of  the  tide  that  spilled  itself 
forth  at  the  station.  He  called  after  him,  "  Do 
as  much  for  you  some  time." 

The  incident  first  amused  Erlcort,  and  then  it 
began  to  trouble  him;  but  he  appeased  his  re 
morse  by  toying  with  his  old  notion  of  a  critical 
bookstore.  His  mind  was  still  at  play  with  it 
when  he  stopped  at  the  bell-pull  of  an  elderly  girl 
of  his  acquaintance  who  had  a  studio  ten  stories 
above,  and  the  habit  of  giving  him  afternoon 
tea  in  it  if  he  called  there  about  five  o'clock.  She 

190 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

had  her  ugly  painting-apron  still  on,  and  her 
thumb  through  the  hole  in  her  palette,  when  she 
opened  her  door  to  him. 

"Too  soon?"  he  asked. 

She  answered  as  well  as  she  could  with  the 
brush  held  horizontally  in  her  mouth  while  she 
glared  inhospitably  at  him.  "Well,  not  much," 
and  then  she  let  him  in,  and  went  and  lighted  her 
spirit-lamp. 

He  began  at  once  to  tell  her  of  his  strange  ex 
perience,  and  went  on  till  she  said:  "Well,  there's 
your  tea.  I  don't  know  what  you've  been  driv 
ing  at,  but  I  suppose  you  do.  Is  it  the  old  thing?" 

"It's  my  critical  bookstore,  if  that's  what  you 
call  the  old  thing." 

"  Oh !  That!  I  thought  it  had  failed  'way  back 
in  the  dark  ages." 

"The  dark  ages  are  not  back,  please;  they're 
all  'round,  and  you  know  very  well  that  my  critical 
bookstore  has  never  been  tried  yet.  But  tell  me 
one  thing :  should  you  wish  to  live  with  a  picture, 
even  for  a  few  hours,  which  had  been  painted  by 
an  old  lady  of  seventy  who  had  never  tried  to 
paint  before?" 

"If  I  intended  to  go  crazy,  yes.  What  has  all 
that  got  to  do  with  it?" 

"That's  the  joint  commendation  of  the  publisher 
and  the  kind  little  blonde  who  united  to  sell  me 

191 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

the  book  I  just  gave  to  that  poor  Subway  train 
man.  Do  you  ever  buy  a  new  book?" 

"No;  I  always  borrow  an  old  one." 

"But  if  you  had  to  buy  a  new  one,  wouldn't  you 
like  to  know  of  a  place  where  you  could  be  sure 
of  getting  a  good  one?" 

"I  shouldn't  mind.  Or,  yes,  I  should,  rather. 
Where's  it  to  be?" 

"Oh,  I  know.  I've  had  my  eye  on  the  place 
for  a  good  while.  It's  a  funny  old  place  in  Sixth 
Avenue — " 

"Sixth  Avenue!" 

"Don't  interrupt — where  the  dearest  old  codger 
in  the  world  is  just  going  out  of  the  house-furnish 
ing  business  in  a  small  way.  It's  kept  getting 
smaller  and  smaller — I've  watched  it  shrink — till 
now  it  can't  stand  up  against  the  big  shops,  and 
the  old  codger  told  me  the  other  day  that  it  was 


no  use." 


"Poor  fellow!" 

"No.  He's  not  badly  off,  and  he's  going  back 
up-state  where  he  came  from  about  forty  years 
ago,  and  he  can  live — or  die — very  well  on  what 
he's  put  by.  I've  known  him  rather  a  good  while, 
and  we've  been  friends  ever  since  we've  been 
acquainted." 

"Go  on,"  the  elderly  girl  said. 

Erlcort  was  not  stopping,  but  she  spoke  so  as 
192 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

to  close  her  mouth,  which  she  was  apt  to  let  hang 
open  in  a  way  that  she  did  not  like;  she  had  her  in 
timates  pledged  to  tell  her  when  she  was  doing  it, 
but  she  could  not  make  a  man  promise,  and  she 
had  to  look  after  her  mouth  herself  with  Erlcort. 
It  was  not  a  bad  mouth;  her  eyes  were  large,  and 
it  was  merely  large  to  match  them. 

"When    shall    you    begin— open    shop?"    she 


"My  old  codger's  lease  expires  in  the  fall,"  he 
answered,  "but  he  would  be  glad  to  have  me  take 
it  off  his  hands  this  spring.  I  could  give  the  sum 
mer  to  changing  and  decorating,  and  begin  my 
campaign  in  the  fall— the  first  of  October,  say. 
Wouldn't  you  like  to  come  some  day  and  see  the 

old  place?" 

"I  should  love  it.  But  you're  not  supposing 
I  shall  be  of  the  least  use,  I  hope?  I'm  not 
decorational,  you  know.  Easel  pictures,  and  small 
ones  at  that." 

"Of  course.  But  you  are  a  woman,  and  have 
ideas  of  the  cozy.  I  mean  that  the  place  shall  be 
made  attractive." 

"Do  you  think  the  situation  will  be — on  Sixth 
Avenue?" 

"It  will  be  quaint.  It's  in  a  retarded  region 
of  low  buildings,  with  a  carpenter's  shop  two  doors 
off.  The  L  roars  overhead  and  the  surface  cars 

13  i93 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

squeal  before,  but  that  is  New  York,  you  know, 
and  it's  very  central.  Besides,  at  the  back  of  the 
shop,  with  the  front  door  shut,  it  is  very  quiet." 

The  next  day  the  friends  lunched  together  at 
an  Italian  restaurant  very  near  the  place,  and 
rather  hurried  themselves  away  to  the  old  codger's 
store. 

"He  is  a  dear,"  Margaret  whispered  to  Erlcort 
in  following  him  about  to  see  the  advantages  of 
the  place. 

"Oh,  mine's  setting-hen's  time,"  he  justified  his 
hospitality  in  finally  asking  them  to  take  seats 
on  a  nail-keg  apiece.  "You  mustn't  think  you're 
interruptin'.  Look  'round  all  ye  want  to,  or  set 
down  and  rest  ye." 

"That  would  be  a  good  motto  for  your  book 
store,"  she  screamed  to  Erlcort,  when  they  got 
out  into  the  roar  of  the  avenue.  ' ' '  Look  'round  all 
ye  want  to,  or  set  down  and  rest  ye.'  Wasn't  he 
sweet?  And  I  don't  wonder  you're  taken  with 
the  place :  it  has  such  capabilities.  You  might  as 
well  begin  imagining  how  you  will  arrange  it." 

They  were  walking  involuntarily  up  the  avenue, 
and  when  they  came  to  the  Park  they  went  into 
it,  and  in  the  excitement  of  their  planning  they 
went  as  far  as  the  Ramble,  where  they  sat  down 
on  a  bench  and  disappointed  some  squirrels  who 
supposed  they  had  brought  peanuts  with  them. 

194 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

They  decided  that  the  front  of  the  shop  should 
be  elaborately  simple;  perhaps  the  door  should  be 
painted  black,  with  a  small-paned  sash  and  a 
heavy  brass  latch.  On  each  side  should  be  a 
small-paned  show-window,  with  books  laid  inside 
on  an  inclined  shelving;  on  the  door  should  be 
a  modest  bronze  plate,  reading,  "The  Critical 
Bookstore."  They  rejected  shop  as  an  affectation, 
and  they  hooted  the  notion  of  "Ye  Critical 
Bookstore"  as  altogether  loathsome.  The  door 
and  window  would  be  in  a  rather  belated  taste, 
but  the  beautiful  is  never  out  of  date,  and  black 
paint  and  small  panes  might  be  found  rococo  in 
their  old-fashionedness  now.  There  should  be  a 
fireplace,  or  perhaps  a  Franklin  stove,  at  the  rear 
of  the  room,  with  a  high-shouldered,  small-paned 
sash  on  each  side  letting  in  the  light  from  the 
yard  of  the  carpenter-shop.  On  the  chimneypiece 
should  be  lettered,  "Look  'round  all  ye  want  to, 
or  set  down  and  rest  ye." 

The  genius  of  the  place  should  be  a  refined 
hospitality,  such  as  the  gentle  old  codger  had 
practised  with  them,  and  to  facilitate  this  there 
should  be  a  pair  of  high-backed  settles,  one  under 
each  window.  The  book-counter  should  stretch 
the  whole  length  of  the  store,  and  at  intervals 
beside  it,  against  the  book-shelving,  should  be  set 
old-fashioned  chairs,  but  not  too  old-fashioned. 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

Against  the  lower  book-shelves  on  a  deeper  shelf 
might  be  stood  against  the  books  a  few  sketches  in 
water-color,  or  even  oil. 

This  was  Margaret  Green's  idea. 

"And  would  you  guarantee  the  quality?"  Erl- 
cort  asked. 

"Perhaps  they  wouldn't  be  for  sale,  though  if 
any  one  insisted — " 

"I  see.     Well,  pass  the  sketches.     What  else?" 

"Well,  a  few  little  figures  in  plaster,  or  even 
marble  or  bronze,  very  Greek,  or  very  American; 
things  in  low  relief." 

"Pass  the  little  figures  and  low  reliefs.  But 
don't  forget  it's  a  bookstore." 

"Oh,  I  won't.  The  sketches  of  all  kinds  would 
be  strictly  subordinated  to  the  books.  If  I  had 
a  tea-room  handy  here,  with  a  table  and  the  backs 
of  some  menus  to  draw  on,  I  could  show  you  just 
how  it  would  look." 

"What's  the  matter  with  the  Casino?" 

"Nothing;   only  it's  rather  early  for  tea  yet." 

"It  isn't  for  soda-lemonade." 

She  set  him  the  example  of  instantly  rising,  and 
led  the  way  back  along  the  lake  to  the  Casino, 
resting  at  that  afternoon  hour  among  its  spring 
flowers  and  blossoms  innocent  of  its  lurid  after- 
dark  frequent ation.  He  got  some  paper  from  the 
waiter  who  came  to  take  their  order.  She  began 

196 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

to  draw  rapidly,  and  by  the  time  the  waiter  came 
again  she  was  giving  Erlcort  the  last  scrap  of 
paper. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  had  no  idea  that  I  had 
imagined  anything  so  charming!  If  this  critical 
bookstore  doesn't  succeed,  it  Jll  be  because  there 
are  no  critics.  But  what — what  are  these  little 
things  hung  against  the  partitions  of  the  shelves?" 

"Oh — mirrors.     Little  round  ones." 

"But  why  mirrors  of  any  shape?" 

"Nothing;  only  people  like  to  see  themselves  in 
a  glass  of  any  shape.  And  when,"  Margaret 
added,  in  a  burst  of  candor,  "a  woman  looks  up 
and  sees  herself  with  a  book  in  her  hand,  she  will 
feel  so  intellectual  she  will  never  put  it  down. 
She  will  buy  it." 

"Margaret  Green,  this  is  immoral.  Strike  out 
those  mirrors,  or  I  will  smash  them  every  one!" 

"Oh,  very  well!"  she  said,  and  she  rubbed  them 
out  with  the  top  of  her  pencil.  "If  you  want 
your  place  a  howling  wilderness." 

He  looked  at  the  ruin  her  rubber  had  wrought. 
"They  were  rather  nice.  Could — could  you  rub 
them  in  again?" 

"Not  if  I  tried  a  hundred  years.  Besides,  they 
were  rather  impudent.  What  time  is  it?" 

"No  time  at  all.     It's  half -past  three." 

"Dear  me!  I  must  be  going.  And  if  you're 
197 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

really  going  to  start  that  precious  critical  book 
store  in  the  fall,  you  must  begin  work  on  it  right 
away." 

"Work?" 

"Reading  up  for  it.  If  you're  going  to  guar 
antee  the  books,  you  must  know  what's  in  them, 
mustn't  you?" 

He  realized  that  he  must  do  what  she  said; 
he  must  know  from  his  own  knowledge  what  was 
in  the  books  he  offered  for  sale,  and  he  began 
reading,  or  reading  at,  the  new  books  immediately. 
He  was  a  good  deal  occupied  by  day  with  the  ar 
rangement  of  his  store,  though  he  left  it  mainly 
with  the  lively  young  decorator  who  undertook 
for  a  lump  sum  to  realize  Margaret  Green's  ideas. 
It  was  at  night  that  he  did  most  of  his  reading 
in  the  spring  books  which  the  publishers  were  will 
ing  to  send  him  gratis,  when  they  understood  he 
was  going  to  open  a  bookstore,  and  only  wanted 
sample  copies.  As  long  as  she  remained  in  town 
Margaret  Green  helped  him  read,  and  they  talked 
the  books  over,  and  mostly  rejected  them.  By  the 
time  she  went  to  Europe  in  August  with  another 
elderly  girl  they  had  not  chosen  more  than  eight 
or  ten  books;  but  they  hoped  for  better  things 
in  the  fall. 

Word  of  what  he  was  doing  had  gone  out  from 
Margaret,  and  a  great  many  women  of  their  rather 

198 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

esthetic  circle  began  writing  to  him  about  the 
books  they  were  reading,  and  commending  them 
to  him  or  warning  him  against  them.  The  circle 
of  his  volunteer  associates  enlarged  itself  in  the 
nature  of  an  endless  chain,  and  before  society 
quite  broke  up  for  the  summer  a  Sympathetic  Tea 
was  offered  to  Erlcort  by  a  Leading  Society 
Woman  at  the  Intellectual  Club,  where  he  was 
invited  to  address  the  Intellectuals  in  explanation 
of  his  project.  This  was  before  Margaret  sailed, 
and  he  hurried  to  her  in  horror. 

"Why,  of  course  you  must  accept.  You're  not 
going  to  hide  your  Critical  Bookstore  under  a 
bushel;  you  can't  have  too  much  publicity." 

The  Leading  Society  Woman  flowed  in  fulsome 
gratitude  at  his  acceptance,  and  promised  no  one 
but  the  club  should  be  there;  he  had  hinted  his 
reluctance.  She  kept  her  promise,  but  among  the 
Intellectuals  there  was  a  girl  who  was  a  just  be 
ginning  journalist,  and  who  pumped  Erlcort's 
whole  scheme  out  of  him,  unsuspicious  of  what  she 
was  doing,  till  he  saw  it  all,  with  his  picture,  in 
the  Sunday  Supplement.  She  rightly  judged  that 
the  intimacy  of  an  interview  would  be  more  popu 
lar  with  her  readers  than  the  cold  and  distant  re 
port  of  his  formal  address,  which  she  must  give, 
though  she  received  it  so  ardently  with  all  the 
other  Intellectuals.  They  flocked  flatteringly,  al- 

199 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

most  suffocatingly,  around  him  at  the  end.  His 
scheme  was  just  what  every  one  had  vaguely 
thought  of:  something  must  be  done  to  stem  the 
tide  of  worthless  fiction,  which  was  so  often  shock 
ing  as  well  as  silly,  and  they  would  only  be  too 
glad  to  help  read  for  him.  They  were  nearly  all 
just  going  to  sail,  but  they  would  each  take  a 
spring  book  on  the  ship,  and  write  him  about  it 
from  the  other  side;  they  would  each  get  a  fall 
book  coming  home,  and  report  as  soon  as  they 
got  back. 

His  scheme  was  discussed  seriously  and  satiri 
cally  by  the  press;  it  became  a  joke  with  many 
papers,  and  a  byword  quickly  worn  out,  so  that 
people  thought  that  it  had  been  dropped.  But 
Erlcort  gave  his  days  and  nights  to  preparation 
for  his  autumnal  campaign.  He  studied  in  careful 
comparison  the  reviews  of  the  different  literary 
authorities,  and  was  a  little  surprised  to  find, 
when  he  came  to  read  the  books  they  reviewed, 
how  honest  and  adequate  they  often  were.  He 
was  obliged  to  own  to  himself  that  if  people  were 
guided  by  them,  few  worthless  books  would  be 
sold,  and  he  decided  that  the  immense  majority 
of  the  book-buyers  were  not  guided  by  the  critics. 
The  publishers  themselves  seemed  not  so  much 
to  blame  when  he  went  to  see  them  and  explained 
his  wish  to  deal  with  them  on  the  basis  of  a  critical 

200 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

bookseller.  They  said  they  wished  all  the  book 
sellers  were  like  him,  for  they  would  ask  nothing 
better  than  to  publish  only  good  books.  The 
trouble,  they  said,  lay  with  the  authors;  they 
wrote  such  worthless  books.  Or  if  now  and  then 
one  of  them  did  write  a  good  book  and  they  were 
over-tempted  to  publish  it,  the  public  united  in 
refusing  to  buy  it.  So  he  saw?  But  if  the  book 
sellers  persisted  in  selling  none  but  good  books, 
perhaps  something  might  be  done.  At  any  rate 
they  would  like  to  see  the  experiment  tried. 

Erlcort  felt  obliged  to  read  the  books  suggested 
to  him  by  the  endless  chain  of  readers  who  vol 
unteered  to  read  for  him,  on  both  sides  of  the 
ocean,  or  going  and  coming  on  the  ocean.  Mostly 
the  books  they  praised  were  abject  rubbish,  but 
it  took  time  to  find  this  out,  and  he  formed  the 
habit  of  reading  far  into  the  night,  and  if  he  was 
very  much  vexed  at  discovering  that  the  book 
recommended  to  him  was  trash,  he  could  not 
sleep  unless  he  took  veronal,  and  then  he  had  a 
ghastly  next  day. 

He  did  not  go  out  of  town  except  for  a  few  brief 
sojourns  at  places  where  he  knew  cultivated  people 
were  staying,  and  could  give  him  their  opinions 
of  the  books  he  was  reading.  When  the  pub 
lishers  began,  as  they  had  agreed,  to  send  him 
their  advance  sheets,  the  stitched  but  unbound 

2OI 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

volumes  roused  so  much  interest  by  the  novelty 
of  their  form  that  his  readers  could  not  give  an 
undivided  attention  to  their  contents.  He  fore 
saw  that  in  the  end  he  should  have  to  rely  upon 
the  taste  of  mercenaries  in  his  warfare  against 
rubbish,  and  more  and  more  he  found  it  neces 
sary  to  expend  himself  in  it,  to  read  at  second 
hand  as  well  as  at  first.  His  greatest  relief  was 
in  returning  to  town  and  watching  the  magical 
changes  which  the  decorator  was  working  in  his 
store.  This  was  consolation,  this  was  inspiration, 
but  he  longed  for  the  return  of  Margaret  Green, 
that  she  might  help  him  enjoy  the  realization  of 
her  ideas  in  the  equipment  of  the  place;  and  he 
held  the  decorator  to  the  most  slavish  obedience 
through  the  carpenters  and  painters  who  created 
at  his  bidding  a  miraculous  interior,  all  white,  or 
just  off-white,  such  as  had  never  been  imagined 
of  a  bookstore  in  New  York  before.  It  was  ac 
tually  ready  by  the  end  of  August,  though  smelling 
a  little  of  turpentine  still,  and  Erlcort,  letting  him 
self  in  at  the  small-paned  black  door,  and  ranging 
up  and  down  the  long,  beautiful  room,  and  round 
and  round  the  central  book-table,  and  in  and  out 
between  the  side  tables,  under  the  soft,  bright 
shelving  of  the  walls,  could  hardly  wait  the  arrival 
of  the  Minnedingdong  in  which  the  elderly  girl 
had  taken  her  passage  back.  One  day,  ten  days 

202 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

ahead  of  time,  she  blew  in  at  the  front  door  in  a 
paroxysm  of  explanation;  she  had  swapped  pas 
sages  home  with  another  girl  who  wanted  to  come 
back  later,  while  she  herself  wanted  to  come  back 
earlier.  She  had  no  very  convincing  reason  for 
this  as  she  gave  it,  but  Erlcort  did  not  listen  to 
her  reason,  whatever  it  was.  He  said,  between 
the  raptures  with  the  place  that  she  fell  in  and 
out  of,  that  now  she  was  just  in  time  for  the  fur 
nishing,  which  he  never  could  have  dared  to  under 
take  alone. 

In  the  gay  September  weather  they  visited  all 
the  antiquity  shops  in  Fourth  Avenue,  and  then 
threw  themselves  frankly  upon  reproductions, 
which  they  bought  in  the  native  wood  and  ordered 
painted,  the  settles  and  the  spindle-backed  chairs 
in  the  cool  gray  which  she  decided  was  the  thing. 
In  the  same  spirit  they  bought  new  brass  fire- 
irons  and  new  shovel  and  tongs,  but  all  very  tall 
and  antique-looking,  and  then  they  got  those  little 
immoral  mirrors,  which  Margaret  Green  attached 
with  her  own  hands  to  the  partitions  of  the  shelv 
ing.  She  also  got  soft  green  silk  curtains  for  the 
chimney  windows  and  for  the  sash  of  the  front 
door;  even  the  front  windows  she  curtained,  but 
very  low,  so  that  a  salesman  or  a  saleswoman  could 
easily  reach  over  from  the  interior  and  get  a  book 
that  any  customer  had  seen  from  the  outside. 

203 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

One  day  when  all  this  was  done,  and  Erlcort  had 
begun  ordering  in  a  stock  of  such  books  as  he  had 
selected  to  start  with,  she  said:  "You're  looking 
rather  peaked,  aren't  you?" 

"Well,  I've  been  feeling  rather  peaked,  until 
lately,  keeping  awake  to  read  and  read  after  the 
volunteer  readers.'* 

"You  mean  you've  lost  sleep?" 

"Something  like  that." 

"Well,  you  mustn't.  How  many  books  do 
you  start  with?" 

"About  twenty-five." 

"Good  ones?  It's  a  lot,  isn't  it?  I  didn't  sup 
pose  there  were  so  many." 

"Well,  to  fill  our  shelves  I  shall  have  to  order 
about  a  thousand  of  each." 

"You'll  never  sell  them  in  the  world!  You'll 
be  ruined." 

"Oh  no;  the  publishers  will  take  them  back." 

"How  nice  of  them!  But  that's  only  what 
painters  have  to  do  when  the  dealers  can't  sell 
their  pictures." 

A  month  off,  the  prospect  was  brilliant,  and 
when  the  shelves  and  tables  were  filled  and  the 
sketches  and  bas-reliefs  were  stuck  about  and  the 
little  immoral  mirrors  were  hung,  the  place  was 
charming.  The  chairs  and  settles  were  all  that 
could  be  asked ;  Margaret  Green  helped  put  them 

204 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

about;  and  he  let  her  light  the  low  fire  on  the 
hearth  of  the  Franklin  stove;  he  said  he  should 
not  always  burn  hickory,  but  he  had  got^twenty- 
four  sticks  for  two  dollars  from  an  Italian  in  a 
cellar  near  by,  and  he  meant  to  burn  that  much. 
She  upbraided  him  for  his  extravagance  while 
touching  the  match  to  the  paper  under  the  kin 
dling;  but  October  opened  cold,  and  he  needed 

the  fire. 

The  enterprise  seemed  rather  to  mystify  the 
neighborhood,  and  some  old  customers  of  the  old 
codger's  came  in  upon  one  fictitious  errand  and 
another  to  see  about  it,  and  went  away  without 
quite  making  it  out.  It  was  a  bookstore,  all 
right,  they  owned  in  conference,  but  what  did  he 
mean  by  "critical"? 

The  first  bonafide  buyer  appeared  in  a  little  girl 
who  could  just  get  her  chin  on  the  counter,  and 
who  asked  for  an  egg-beater.  Erlcort  had  begun 
with  only  one  assistant,  the  young  lady  who 
typed  his  letters  and  who  said  she  guessed  she 
could  help  him  when  she  was  not  working.  She 
leaned  over  and  tried  to  understand  the  little  girl, 
and  then  she  called  to  Erlcort  where  he  stood  with 
his  back  to  the  fire  and  the  morning  paper  open 
before  his  face. 

"Mr.  Erlcort,  have  we  got  a  book  called  The 

Egg-beater?" 

205 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

"The  Egg-beater?"  he  echoed,  letting  his  paper 
drop  below  his  face. 

"No,  no!"  the  little  girl  shouted,  angrily.  "It 
ain't  a  book.  It's  a  thing  to  beat  eggs  with. 
Mother  said  to  come  here  and  get  it." 

"Well,  she's  sent  you  to  the  wrong  place,  little 
girl.  You  want  to  go  to  a  hardware-store,"  the 
young  lady  argued. 

"Ain't  this  No.  1232?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  this  is  the  right  place.  Mother  said  to 
go  to  1232.  I  guess  she  knows.  She's  an  old 
customer." 

"The  Egg-beater!  The  Egg-beater!"  the  blithe 
young  novelist  to  whom  Erlcort  told  the  story 
repeated.  He  was  still  happy  in  his  original  suc 
cess  as  a  best-seller,  and  he  had  come  to  the 
Critical  Bookstore  to  spy  out  the  stock  and  see 
whether  his  last  novel  was  in  it;  but  though  it 
was  not,  he  joyously  extended  an  acquaintance 
with  Erlcort  which  had  begun  elsewhere.  "The 
Egg-beater?  What  a  splendid  title  for  a  story  of 
adventure!  Keep  the  secret  of  its  applicability 
to  the  last  word,  or  perhaps  never  reveal  it  at  all, 
and  leave  the  reader  worrying.  That's  one  way; 
makes  him  go  and  talk  about  the  book  to  all  the 
girls  he  knows  and  get  them  guessing.  Best  ad. 
in  the  world.  The  Egg-beater!  Doesn't  it  suggest 

206 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

desert  islands  and  penguins*  nests  in  the  rocks? 
Fellow  and  girl  shipwrecked,  and  girl  wants  to 
make  an  omelette  after  they've  got  sick  of  plain 
eggs,  and  can't  for  want  of  an  egg-beater.  Heigh  ? 
He  invents  one — makes  it  out  of  some  wire  that 
floats  off  from  the  wreck.  See?  When  they  are 
rescued,  she  brings  it  away,  and  doesn't  let  him 
know  it  till  their  Iron  Wedding  Day.  They  keep 
it  over  his  study  fireplace  always." 

This  author  was  the  first  to  stretch  his  legs 
before  Erlcort's  fire  from  his  seat  on  one  of  the 
reproductions.  He  could  not  say  enough  of  the 
beauty  of  the  place,  and  he  asked  if  he  might  sit 
there  and  watch  for  the  old  codger's  old  cus 
tomers  coming  to  buy  hardware.  There  might 
be  copy  in  it. 

But  the  old  customers  did  not  come  so  often  as 
he  hoped  and  Erlcort  feared.  Instead  there  came 
bona  fide  book-buyers,  who  asked  some  for  a  book 
and  some  for  a  particular  book.  The  first  were 
not  satisfied  with  the  books  that  Erlcort  or  his 
acting  saleslady  recommended,  and  went  away 
without  buying.  The  last  were  indignant  at 
not  finding  what  they  wanted  in  Erlcort's  se 
lection. 

"Why  don't  you  stock  it?"  they  demanded. 

"Because  I  don't  think  it's  worth  reading." 

"Oh,  indeed!"  The  sarcastic  customers  were 
207 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

commonly  ladies.  * 'I 'thought  you  let  the  public 
judge  of  that!" 

"There  are  bookstores  where  they  do.  This  is 
a  critical  bookstore.  I  sell  only  the  books  that  I 
think  worth  reading.  If  you  had  noticed  my 
sign-" 

"Oh!"  the  customer  would  say,  and  she,  too, 
would  go  away  without  buying. 

There  were  other  ladies  who  came,  links  of  the 
endless  chain  of  volunteer  readers  who  had  tried 
to  help  Erlcort  in  making  his  selection,  and  he 
could  see  them  slyly  looking  his  stock  over  for 
the  books  they  had  praised  to  him.  Mostly 
they  went  away  without  comment,  but  with  heads 
held  high  in  the  offense  which  he  felt  even  .more 
than  saw.  One,  indeed,  did  ask  him  why  he  had 
not  stocked  her  chosen  book,  and  he  had  to  say, 
"Well,  when  I  came  to  go  through  it  carefully, 
I  didn't  think  it  quite—" 

"But  here  is  The  Green  Bay  Tree,  and  The 
Biggest  Toad  in  the  Puddle,  and — " 

'  *  I  know.  For  one  reason  and  another  I  thought 
them  worth  stocking." 

Then  another  head  went  away  high  in  the  air, 
with  its  plumes  quivering.  One  afternoon  late  a 
lady  came  flying  in  with  all  the  marks,  whatever 
they  are,  of  transatlantic  travel  upon  her. 

"I'm  just  through  the  customs,  and  I've  mo- 
208 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

tored  up  here  the  first  thing,  even  before  I  went 
home,  to  stop  you  from  selling  that  book  I  recom 
mended.  It's  dreadful;  and,  horrors!  horrors! 
here  it  is  by  the  hundreds !  Oh,  Mr.  Erlcort !  You 
mustn't  sell  that  dreadful  book!  You  see,  I  had 
skipped  through  it  in  my  berth  going  out,  and 
posted  my  letter  the  first  thing;  and  just  now, 
coming  home,  I  found  it  in  the  ship's  library  and 
came  on  that  frightful  episode.  You  know! 
Where —  How  could  you  order  it  without  read 
ing  it,  on  a  mere  say-so?  It's  utterly  immoral!" 

"I  don't  agree  with  you,"  Erlcort  answered, 
dryly.  "I  consider  that  passage  one  of  the  finest 
in  modern  fiction — one  of  the  most  ennobling  and 
illumining— 

"Ennobling!"  The  lady  made  a  gesture  of 
horror.  "Very  well!  If  that  is  your  idea  of  a 
critical  bookstore,  all  I've  got  to  say  is — " 

But  she  had  apparently  no  words  to  say  it  in, 
and  she  went  out  banging  but  failing  to  latch  the 
door  which  let  through  the  indignant  snort  of  her 
car  as  it  whirled  her  away.  She  left  Erlcort  and 
his  assistant  to  a  common  silence,  but  he  imagined 
somehow  a  resolution  in  the  stenographer  not  to 
let  the  book  go  unsearched  till  she  had  grasped 
the  full  iniquity  of  that  episode  and  felt  all  its 
ennobling  force.  He  was  not  consoled  when  an 
other  lady  came  in  and,  after  drifting  unmolested- 

*4  209 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

ly  about  (it  was  the  primary  rule  of  the  place  not 
to  follow  people  up),  stopped  before  the  side  shelf 
where  the  book  was  ranged  in  dozens  and  scores. 
She  took  a  copy  from  the  neat  ranks,  and  opened 
it ;  then  she  lifted  her  head  by  chance  and  caught 
sight  of  her  plume  in  one  of  the  little  mirrors. 
She  stealthily  lifted  herself  on  tiptoe  till  she  could 
see  her  face,  and  then  she  turned  to  the  assistant 
and  said,  gently,  * '  I  believe  I  should  like  this  book, 
please,"  and  paid  for  it  and  went  out. 

It  was  now  almost  on  the  stroke  of  six,  and 
Erlcort  said  to  his  assistant:  "I'll  close  the  store, 
Miss  Pearsall.  You  needn't  stay  any  longer." 

"All  right,  sir,"  the  girl  said,  and  went  into  the 
little  closet  at  the  rear  for  her  hat  and  coat.  Did 
she  contrive  to  get  a  copy  of  that  book  under  her 
coat  as  she  passed  the  shelf  where  it  lay? 

When  she  was  gone,  he  turned  the  key  in  the 
door  and  went  back  and  sat  down  before  the  fire 
dying  on  the  hearth  of  the  Franklin  stove.  It  was 
not  a  very  cheerful  moment  with  him,  but  he 
could  not  have  said  that  the  day  had  been  unprofit 
able,  either  spiritually  or  pecuniarily.  In  its  ex 
periences  it  had  been  a  varied  day,  and  he  had 
really  sold  a  good  many  books.  More  people  than 
he  could  have  expected  had  taken  him  seriously 
and  even  intelligently.  It  is  true  that  he  had 
been  somewhat  vexed  by  the  sort  of  authority 

210 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

the  president  of  the  Intellectual  Club  had  shown 
in  the  way  she  swelled  into  the  store  and  patronized 
him  and  it,  as  if  she  had  invented  them  both,  and 
blamed  him  in  a  high,  sweet  voice  for  having  so 
many  old  books.  "My  idea  was  that  it  would 
be  a  place  where  one  could  come  for  the  best  of 
the  new  books.  But  here!  Why,  half  of  them  I 
saw  in  June  before  I  sailed!"  She  chided  him 
merrily,  and  she  acted  as  if  it  were  quite  part  of 
the  joke  when  he  said  that  he  did  not  think  a 
good  book  could  age  much  in  four  months.  She 
laughed  patronizingly  at  his  conceit  of  getting  in 
the  fall  books  by  Thanksgiving;  but  even  for  the 
humor  of  it  she  could  not  let  him  say  he  should 
not  do  anything  in  holiday  books.  "I  had  ex 
pected  to  get  all  my  Christmas  books  of  you,  Mr. 
Erlcort,"  she  crowed,  but  for  the  present  she 
bought  nothing.  In  compensation  he  recalled  the 
gratitude,  almost  humble  gratitude,  of  a  lady  (she 
was  a  lady !)  who  had  come  that  day,  bringing  her 
daughter  to  get  a  book,  any  book  in  his  stock, 
and  to  thank  him  for  his  enterprise,  which  she  had 
found  worked  perfectly  in  the  case  of  the  book 
she  had  got  the  week  before;  the  book  had  been 
an  unalloyed  delight,  and  had  left  a  sense  of 
heightened  self-respect  with  her:  that  book  of 
the  dreadful  episode. 

He  wished   Margaret   Green  had  been  there; 
211 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

but  she  had  been  there  only  once  since  his  open 
ing  ;  he  could  not  think  why.  He  heard  a  rattling 
at  the  door-latch,  and  he  said  before  he  turned  to 
look,  "What  if  it  should  be  she  now?"  But  when 
he  went  to  peer  through  the  door-curtain  it  was 
only  an  old  fellow  who  had  spent  the  better  part 
of  the  afternoon  in  the  best  chair,  reading  a  book. 
Erlcort  went  back  to  the  fire  and  let  him  rattle, 
which  he  did  rather  a  long  time,  and  then  went 
away,  Erlcort  hoped,  in  dudgeon.  He  was  one  of 
a  number  of  customers  who  had  acted  on  the  half 
of  his  motto  asking  them  to  sit  down  and  rest 
them,  after  acting  on  the  other  half  to  look  round 
all  they  wanted.  Most  of  them  did  not  read, 
even ;  they  seemed  to  know  one  another,  and  they 
talked  comfortably  together.  Erlcort  recognized 
a  companionship  of  four  whom  he  had  noticed  in 
the  Park  formerly;  they  were  clean-enough-look 
ing  elderly  men,  but  occupied  nearly  all  the  chairs 
and  settles,  so  that  lady  customers  did  not  like 
to  bring  books  and  look  over  them  in  the  few  places 
left,  and  Erlcort  foresaw  the  time  when  he  should 
have  to  ask  the  old  fellows  to  look  around  more  and 
rest  them  less.  In  resuming  his  own  place  before 
the  fire  he  felt  the  fleeting  ache  of  a  desire  to  ask 
Margaret  Green  whether  it  would  not  be  a  good 
plan  to  remove  the  motto  from  the  chimneypiece. 
He  would  not  have  liked  to  do  it  without  asking 

212 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

her;  it  had  been  her  notion  to  put  it  there,  and 
her  other  notion  of  the  immoral  mirrors  had  cer 
tainly  worked  well.  The  thoughtful  expression 
they  had  reflected  on  the  faces  of  lady  customers 
had  sold  a  good  many  books;  not  that  Erlcort 
wished  to  sell  books  that  way,  though  he  argued 
with  himself  that  his  responsibility  ought  strictly 
to  end  with  the  provision  of  books  which  he  had 
critically  approved  before  offering  them  for  sale. 

His  conscience  was  not  wholly  at  peace  as  to 
his  stock,  not  only  the  books  which  he  had  in 
cluded,  but  also  those  he  had  excluded.  Some  of 
these  tacitly  pleaded  against  his  severity;  in  one 
case  an  author  came  and  personally  protested. 
This  was  the  case  of  a  book  by  the  ex-best-seller, 
who  held  that  his  last  book  was  so  much  better 
than  his  first  that  it  ought  certainly  to  be  found 
in  any  critical  bookstore.  The  proceeds  of  his 
best-seller  had  enabled  him  to  buy  an  electric 
runabout,  and  he  purred  up  to  Erlcort's  door  in 
it  to  argue  the  matter  with  him.  He  sat  down  in 
a  reproduction  and  proved,  gaily,  that  Erlcort 
was  quite  wrong  about  it.  He  had  the  book  with 
him,  and  read  passages  from  it;  then  he  read 
passages  from  some  of  the  books  on  sale  and  de 
fied  Erlcort  to  say  that  his  passages  were  not  just 
as  good,  or,  as  he  put  it  merrily,  the  same  as.  He 
held  that  his  marked  improvement  entitled  him 

213 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

to  the  favor  of  a  critical  bookstore;  without  this, 
what  motive  had  he  in  keeping  from  a  reversion 
to  the  errors  which  had  won  him  the  vicious  pros 
perity  of  his  first  venture  ?  Hadn't  Erlcort  a  duty 
to  perform  in  preventing  his  going  back  to  the 
bad?  Refuse  this  markedly  improved  fiction,  and 
you  drove  him  to  writing  nothing  but  best-sellers 
from  now  on.  He  urged  Erlcort  to  reflect. 

They  had  a  jolly  time,  and  the  ex-best-seller 
went  away  in  high  spirits,  prophesying  that  Erl 
cort  would  come  to  his  fiction  yet. 

There  were  authors  who  did  not  leave  Erlcort 
so  cheerful  when  they  failed  to  see  their  books  on 
his  shelves  or  tables.  Some  of  them  were  young 
authors  who  had  written  their  worthless  books 
with  a  devout  faith  in  their  worth,  and  they  went 
away  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger,  and  yet  more 
in  bewilderment.  Some  were  old  authors  who  had 
been  all  their  lives  acceptably  writing  second-rate 
books  and  trying  to  make  them  unacceptably  first- 
rate.  If  he  knew  them  he  kept  out  of  their  way, 
but  the  dejection  of  their  looks  was  not  less  a 
pang  to  him  if  he  saw  them  searching  his  stock 
for  their  books  in  vain. 

He  had  his  own  moments  of  dejection.  The  in 
terest  of  the  press  in  his  enterprise  had  flashed 
through  the  Sunday  issues  of  a  single  week,  and 
then  flashed  out  in  lasting  darkness.  He  won- 

314 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

dered  vaguely  if  he  had  counted  without  the 
counting-house  in  hoping  for  their  continued  favor; 
he  could  not  realize  that  nothing  is  so  stale  as  old 
news,  and  that  no  excess  of  advertising  would 
have  relumed  those  fitful  fires. 

He  would  have  liked  to  talk  the  case  over  with 
Margaret  Green.  After  his  first  revolt  from  the 
easy  publicity  the  reporters  had  first  given  him, 
he  was  aware  of  having  enjoyed  it — perhaps 
vulgarly  enjoyed  it.  But  he  hoped  not  quite 
that;  he  hoped  that  in  his  fleeting  celebrity  he 
had  cared  for  his  scheme  rather  than  himself. 
He  had  really  believed  in  it,  and  he  liked  having 
it  recognized  as  a  feature  of  modern  civilization, 
an  innovation  which  did  his  city  and  his  country 
credit.  Now  and  then  an  essayist  of  those  who 
wrote  thoughtful  articles  in  the  Sunday  or  Satur 
day-evening  editions  had  dropped  in,  and  he  had 
opened  his  heart  to  them  in  a  way  he  would  not 
have  minded  their  taking  advantage  of.  Secretly 
he  hoped  they  would  see  a  topic  in  his  enterprise 
and  his  philosophy  of  it.  But  they  never  did, 
and  he  was  left  to  the  shame  of  hopes  which  had 
held  nothing  to  support  defeat.  He  would  have 
liked  to  confess  his  shame  and  own  the  justice  of 
his  punishment  to  Margaret  Green,  but  she  seemed 
the  only  friend  who  never  came  near.  Other 
friends  came,  and  many  strangers,  the  friends  to 

215 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

look  and  the  strangers  to  buy.  He  had  no  reason 
to  complain  of  his  sales;  the  fame  of  his  critical 
bookstore  might  have  ceased  in  New  York,  be 
cause  it  had  gone  abroad  to  Chicago  and  St. 
Louis  and  Pittsburg ;  people  who  were  clearly  from 
these  commercial  capitals  and  others  came  and 
bought  copiously  of  his  criticized  stock,  and  they 
praised  the  notion  of  it  in  telling  him  that  he 
ought  to  open  branches  in  their  several  cities. 

They  were  all  women,  and  it  was  nearly  all 
women  who  frequented  the  Critical  Bookstore, 
but  in  their  multitude  Margaret  Green  was  not. 
He  thought  it  the  greater  pity  because  she  would 
have  enjoyed  many  of  them  with  him,  and  would 
have  divined  such  as  hoped  the  culture  implicated 
by  a  critical  bookstore  would  come  off  on  them 
without  great  effort  of  their  own ;  she  would  have 
known  the  sincere  spirits,  too,  and  could  have 
helped  direct  their  choice  of  the  best  where  all 
was  so  good.  He  smiled  to  find  that  he  was  in 
voking  her  help,  which  he  had  no  right  to. 

His  longing  had  no  effect  upon  her  till  deep  in 
January,  when  the  weather  was  engaged  late  one 
afternoon  in  keeping  the  promise  of  a  January 
thaw  in  the  form  of  the  worst  snow-storm  of  the 
winter.  Then  she  came  thumping  with  her  um 
brella-handle  at  his  door  as  if,  he  divined,  she  were 
too  stiff -handed  or  too  package-laden  to  press  the 

216 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

latch  and  let  herself  in,  and  she  almost  fell  in, 
but  saved  herself  by  spilling  on  the  floor  some 
canvases  and  other  things  which  she  had  been 
getting  at  the  artist  's-materials  store  near  by. 
"Don't  bother  about  them,"  she  said,  "but  take 
me  to  the  fire  as  fast  as  you  can,"  and  when  she 
had  turned  from  snow  to  rain  and  had  dripped 
partially  dry  before  the  Franklin  stove,  she  asked, 
"Where  have  you  been  all  the  time?" 

"Waiting  here  for  you,"  he  answered. 

"Well,  you  needn't.  I  wasn't  going  to  come — 
or  at  least  not  till  you  sent  for  me,  or  said  you 
wanted  my  advice." 

"I  don't  want  your  advice  now." 

"I  didn't  come  to  give  it.  I  just  dropped  in 
because  if  I  hadn't  I  should  have  just  dropped 
outside.  How  have  you  been  getting  along  with 
your  ridiculous  critical  bookstore?" 

"Well,  things  are  rather  quiet  with  us  just  now, 
as  the  publishers  say  to  the  authors  when  they 
don't  want  to  publish  their  books." 

"Yes,  I  know  that  saying.  Why  didn't  you 
go  in  for  the  holiday  books?" 

"How  did  you  know  I  didn't?" 

"Lots  of  people  told  me." 

1 '  Well,  then,  I'll  tell  you  why.  I  would  have  had 
to  read  them  first,  and  no  human  being  could  do  that 
— not  even  a  volunteer  link  in  an  endless  chain," 

217 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

"I  see.     But  since  Christmas?" 

"You  know  very  well  that  after  Christmas  the 
book  market  drops  dead." 

"Yes,  so  I've  been  told."  She  had  flung  her 
wet  veil  back  over  her  shoulders,  and  he  thought 
she  had  never  looked  so  adorably  plain  before;  if 
she  could  have  seen  herself  in  a  glass  she  would  have 
found  her  whole  face  out  of  drawing.  It  seemed  as 
if  his  thinking  had  put  her  in  mind  of  them,  and 
she  said,  "Those  immoral  mirrors  are  shameful." 

"They've  sold  more  of  the  best  books  than 
anything  else." 

"No  matter.  As  soon  as  I  get  a  little  drier  I 
shall  take  them  down." 

"Very  well.  I  didn't  put  them  up."  He  laid 
a  log  of  hickory  on  the  fire.  "I'm  not  doing  it 
to  dry  you  quicker." 

"Oh,  I  know.  I'll  tell  you  one  thing.  You 
ought  to  keep  the  magazines,  or  at  least  the  Big 
Four.  You  could  keep  them  with  a  good  con 
science,  and  you  could  sell  them  without  reading; 
they're  always  good." 

"There's  an  idea  in  that.     I  believe  I'll  try  it." 

Margaret  Green  was  now  dry  enough,  and  she 
rose  and  removed  the  mirrors.  In  doing  this  she 
noticed  that  Erlcort  had  apparently  sold  a  good 
many  of  his  best  books,  and  she  said:  "Well!  I 
don't  see  why  you  should  be  discouraged." 

318 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

''Who  said  I  was?     I'm  exultant." 

"Then  you  were  exulting  with  the  corners  of 
your  mouth  down  just  now.  Well,  I  must  be 
going.  Will  you  get  a  taxi  to  flounder  over  to 
the  Subway  with  me?"  While  Erlcort  was  tele 
phoning  she  was  talking  to  him.  "I  believe  the 
magazines  will  revive  public  interest  in  your 
scheme.  Put  them  in  your  window.  Try  to  get 
advance  copies  for  it." 

"You  have  a  commercial  genius,  Margaret 
Green." 

"When  it  conies  to  selling  literature,  I  have. 
Selling  art  is  where  I  fall  down." 

"That's  because  you  always  try  to  sell  your 
own  art.  I  should  fall  down,  too,  if  I  tried  to 
sell  my  own  literature." 

They  got  quite  back  to  their  old  friendliness; 
the  coming  of  the  taxi  gave  them  plenty  of  time. 
The  electric  lights  were  turned  brilliantly  on,  but 
there,  at  the  far  end  of  the  store,  before  the  Frank 
lin  stove,  they  had  a  cozy  privacy.  At  the  mo 
ment  of  parting  she  said : 

"If  I  were  you  I  should  take  out  these  settles. 
They  simply  invite  loafing." 

"I've  noticed  that  they  seem  to  do  that." 

"And  better  paint  out  that  motto." 

"  F ve  sometimes  fancied  I '  d  better.  That  invites 
loafing,  too;  though  some  nice  people  like  it," 

319 


THE  CRITICAL,  BOOKSTORE 

"Nice  people?  Why  haven't  some  of  them 
bought  a  picture?"  He  perceived  that  she  had 
taken  in  the  persistent  presence  of  the  sketches 
when  removing  the  mirrors,  and  he  shared  the 
indignation  she  expressed:  " Shabby  things!" 

She  stood  with  the  mirrors  under  her  arm,  and 
he  asked  what  she  was  going  to  do  with  them,  as 
he  followed  her  to  the  door  with  her  other  things. 

'  *  Put  them  around  the  studio.  But  you  needn't 
come  to  see  the  effect." 

1  'No.     I  shall  come  to  see  you." 

But  when  he  came  in  a  lull  of  February,  and  he 
could  walk  part  of  the  way  up  through  the  Park 
on  the  sunny  Saturday  afternoon,  she  said: 

"I  suppose  you've  come  to  pour  out  some  more 
of  your  griefs.  Well,  pour  away!  Has  the  maga 
zine  project  failed?" 

"On  the  contrary,  it  has  been  a  succh  fou. 
But  I  don't  feel  altogether  easy  in  my  mind  about 
it.  The  fact  is,  they  seem  to  print  much  more 
rubbish  than  I  supposed." 

"Of  course  they  do;  they  must;  rubbish  is  the 
breath  in  their  nostrils." 

She  painted  away,  screwing  her  eyes  almost  shut 
and  getting  very  close  to  her  picture.  He  had 
never  thought  her  so  plain;  she  was  letting  her 
mouth  hang  open.  He  wondered  why  she  was  so 
charming;  but  when  she  stepped  back  rhythmi- 

220 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

cally,  tilting  her  pretty  head  this  way  and  that, 
he  saw  why :  it  was  her  unfailing  grace.  She  sud 
denly  remembered  her  mouth  and  shut  it  to  say, 
"Well?" 

4 'Well,  some  people  have  come  back  at  me. 
They've  said,  What  a  rotten  number  this  or  that 
was !  They  were  right ;  and  yet  there  were  things 
in  all  those  magazines  better  than  anything  they 
had  ever  printed.  What's  to  be  done  about  it? 
I  can't  ask  people  to  buy  truck  or  read  truck  be 
cause  it  comes  bound  up  with  essays  and  stories 
and  poems  of  the  first  quality." 

"No.  You  can't.  Why,"  she  asked,  drifting 
up  to  her  picture  again,  "don't  you  tear  the  bad 
out,  and  sell  the  good?" 

Erlcort  gave  a  disdainful  sound,  such  as  cannot 
be  spelled  in  English.  "Do  you  know  how  de 
fiantly  the  bad  is  bound  up  with  the  good  in  the 
magazines?  They're  wired  together,  and  you 
could  no  more  tear  out  the  bad  and  leave  the 
good  than  you  could  part  vice  from  virtue  in 
human  nature." 

"I  see,"  Margaret  Green  said,  but  she  saw  no 
further,  and  she  had  to  let  him  go  disconsolate. 
After  waiting  a  decent  time  she  went  to  find  him 
in  his  critical  bookstore.  It  was  late  in  an  after 
noon  of  the  days  that  were  getting  longer,  and 
only  one  electric  was  lighted  in  the  rear  of  the 

221 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

room,  where  Erlcort  sat  before  the  fireless  Frank 
lin  stove,  so  busy  at  something  that  he  scarcely 
seemed  aware  of  her. 

"What  in  the  world  are  you  doing?"  she  de 
manded. 

He  looked  up.  "Who?  I?  Oh,  it's  you! 
Why,  I'm  merely  censoring  the  truck  in  the  May 
number  of  this  magazine."  He  held  up  a  little 
roller,  as  long  as  the  magazine  was  wide,  blacked 
with  printer's  ink,  which  he  had  been  applying 
to  the  open  periodical.  "I've  taken  a  hint  from 
the  way  the  Russian  censorship  blots  out  seditious 
literature  before  it  lets  it  go  to  the  public." 

"And  what  a  mess  you're  making!" 

' '  Of  course  it  will  have  to  dry  before  it's  put  on 
sale." 

"I  should  think  so.  Listen  to  me,  Frederick 
Erlcort:  you're  going  crazy." 

"I've  sometimes  thought  so:  crazy  with  con 
ceit  and  vanity  and  arrogance.  Who  am  I  that 
I  should  set  up  for  a  critical  bookstore-keeper? 
What  is  the  Republic  of  Letters,  anyway?  A 
vast,  benevolent,  generous  democracy,  where  one 
may  have  what  one  likes,  or  a  cold  oligarchy  where 
he  is  compelled  to  take  what  is  good  for  him  ?  Is 
it  a  restricted  citizenship,  with  a  minority  repre 
sentation,  or  is  it  universal  suffrage?" 

"Now,"  Margaret  Green  said,  "you  are  talk- 

222 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

ing  sense.  Why  didn't  you  think  of  this  in  the 
beginning?" 

"Is  it  a  world,  a  whole  earth,"  he  went  on, 
"where  the  weeds  mostly  outflourish  the  flow 
ers,  or  is  it  a  wretched  little  florist's  conservatory 
where  the  watering-pot  assumes  to  better  the  in 
struction  of  the  rain  which  falls  upon  the  just  and 
the  unjust?  What  is  all  the  worthy  family  of 
asses  to  do  if  there  are  no  thistles  to  feed  them? 
Because  the  succulent  fruits  and  nourishing 
cereals  are  better  for  the  finer  organisms,  are  the 
coarser  not  to  have  fodder?  No;  I  have  made 
a  mistake.  Literature  is  the  whole  world;  it  is 
the  expression  of  the  gross,  the  fatuous,  and  the 
foolish,  and  it  is  the  pleasure  of  the  gross,  the 
fatuous,  and  the  foolish,  as  well  as  the  expression 
and  the  pleasure  of  the  wise,  the  fine,  the  elect. 
Let  the  multitude  have  their  truck,  their  rubbish, 
their  rot;  it  may  not  be  the  truck,  the  rubbish,  the 
rot  that  it  would  be  to  us,  or  may  slowly  and  by 
natural  selection  become  to  certain  of  them.  But 
let  there  be  no  artificial  selection,  no  survival  of  the 
fittest  by  main  force — the  force  of  the  spectator, 
who  thinks  he  knows  better  than  the  creator  of 
the  ugly  and  the  beautiful,  the  fair  and  foul,  the 
evil  and  good." 

"Oh,  now  if  the  Intellectual  Club  could  hear 
you!"  Margaret  Green  said,  with  a  long,  deep, 

223 


THE  CRITICAL  BOOKSTORE 

admiring  suspiration.  "And  what  are  you  going 
to  do  with  your  critical  bookstore?" 

"I'm  going  to  sell  it.  I've  had  an  offer  from 
the  author  of  that  best-seller — I've  told  you  about 
him.  I  was  just  trying  to  censor  that  magazine 
while  I  was  thinking  it  over.  He's  got  an  idea. 
He's  going  to  keep  it  a  critical  bookstore,  but  the 
criticism  is  to  be  made  by  universal  suffrage  and 
the  will  of  the  majority.  The  latest  books  will 
be  put  to  a  vote ;  and  the  one  getting  the  greatest 
number  of  votes  will  be  the  first  offered  for  sale, 
and  the  author  will  receive  a  free  passage  to 
Europe  by  the  southern  route." 

: ' The  southern  route !"  Margaret  mused.  "I've 
never  been  that  way.  It  must  be  delightful." 

''Then  come  with  me!    I'm  going." 

"But  how  can  I?" 

"By  marrying  me!" 

"I  never  thought  of  that,"  she  said.  Then, 
with  the  conscientious  resolution  of  an  elderly  girl 
who  puts  her  fate  to  the  touch  of  any  risk  the 
truth  compels,  she  added:  "Or,  yes!  I  have. 
But  I  never  supposed  you  would  ask  me."  She 
stared  at  him,  and  she  was  aware  she  was  letting 
her  mouth  hang  open.  While  she  was  trying  for 
some  word  to  close  it  with  he  closed  it  for  her. 


A    FEAST    OF    REASON 


XIV 
A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

FJLORINDO  and  Lindora  had  come  to  the  end 
*•  of  another  winter  in  town,  and  had  packed 
up  for  another  summer  in  the  country.  They  were 
sitting  together  over  their  last  breakfast  until  the 
taxi  should  arrive  to  whirl  them  away  to  the  sta 
tion,  and  were  brooding  in  a  joint  gloom  from  the 
effect  of  the  dinner  they  had  eaten  at  the  house 
of  a  friend  the  night  before,  and,  "Well,  thank 
goodness,"  she  said,  "there  is  an  end  to  that  sort 
of  thing  for  one  while." 

"An  end  to  that  thing,"  he  partially  assented, 
"but  not  that  sort  of  thing." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  demanded  excitedly, 
almost  resentfully. 

"I  mean  that  the  lunch  is  of  the  nature  of  the 
dinner,  and  that  in  the  country  we  shall  begin 
lunching  where  we  left  off  dining." 

1 '  Not  instantly, ' '  she  protested  shrilly.  ' '  There 
will  be  nobody  there  for  a  while — not  for  a  whole 
month,  nearly." 

227 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

"They  will  be  there  before  you  can  turn  round, 
almost;  and  then  you  women  will  begin  feeding 
one  another  there  before  you  have  well  left  off 
here." 

"We  women!"  she  protested. 

"Yes,  you — you  women.  You  give  the  dinners. 
Can  you  deny  it?" 

"It's  because  we  can't  get  you  to  the  lunches." 

"In  the  country  you  can;  and  so  you  will  give 
the  lunches." 

"We  would  give  dinners  if  it  were  not  for  the 
distance,  and  the  darkness  on  those  bad  roads." 

"I  don't  see  where  your  reasoning  is  carrying 
you." 

"No,"  she  despaired,  "there  is  no  reason  in  it. 
No  sense.  How  tired  of  it  all  I  am!  And,  as 
you  say,  it  will  be  no  time  before  it  is  all  going 
on  again." 

They  computed  the  number  of  dinners  they 
had  given  during  the  winter;  that  was  not  hard, 
and  the  sum  was  not  great:  six  or  seven  at  the 
most,  large  and  small.  When  it  came  to  the 
dinners  they  had  received,  it  was  another  thing; 
but  still  she  considered,  "Were  they  really  so 
few?  It's  nothing  to  what  the  English  do.  They 
never  dine  alone  at  home,  and  they  never  dine 
alone  abroad — of  course  not!  I  wonder  they  can 
stand  it.  I  think  a  dinner,  the  happy-to-accept 

228 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

kind,  is  always  loathsome:  the  everlasting  soup, 
if  there  aren't  oysters  first,  or  grape-fruit,  or  melon, 
and  the  fish,  and  the  entree,  and  the  roast  and 
salad,  and  the  ice-cream  and  the  fruit  nobody 
touches,  and  the  coffee  and  cigarettes  and  cigars 
—how  I  hate  it  all!" 

Lindora  sank  back  in  her  chair  and  toyed  des 
perately  with  the  fragment  of  bacon  on  her  plate. 

"And  yet,"  Florindo  said,  "there  is  a  charm 
about  the  first  dinner  of  autumn,  after  you've 
got  back." 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  assented;  "it's  like  a  part  of 
our  lost  youth.  We  think  all  the  dinners  of  the 
winter  will  be  like  that,  and  we  come  away  beam 
ing." 

"But  when  it  keeps  on  and  there's  more  and 
more  of  our  lost  youth,  till  it  comes  to  being  the 
whole—" 

"Florindo!"  she  stopped  him.  He  pretended 
that  he  was  not  going  to  have  said  it,  and  she 
resumed,  dreamily,  "I  wonder  what  it  is  makes 
it  so  detestable  as  the  winter  goes  on." 

"All  customs  are  detestable,  the  best  of  them," 
he  suggested,  "and  I  should  say,  in  spite  of  the 
first  autumnal  dinner,  that  the  society  dinner  was 
an  unlovely  rite.  You  try  to  carry  if  off  with 
china  and  glass,  and  silver  and  linen,  and  if  people 
could  fix  their  minds  on  these,  or  even  on  the 

229 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

dishes  of  the  dinner  as  they  come  successively  on, 
it  would  be  all  very  well;  but  the  diners,  the 
diners!" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "the  old  men  are  hideous, 
certainly;  and  the  young  ones — I  try  not  to  look 
at  them,  poking  things  into  the  hollows  of  their 
faces  with  spoons  and  forks — " 

"Better  than  when  it  was  done  with  knives! 
Still,  it's  a  horror!  A  veteran  diner-out  in  full 
action  is  certainly  a  hideous  spectacle.  Often  he 
has  few  teeth  of  his  own,  and  the  dentists  don't 
serve  him  perfectly.  He  is  in  danger  of  dropping 
things  out  of  his  mouth,  both  liquids  and  solids: 
better  not  look!  His  eyes  bulge  and  roll  in  his 
head  in  the  stress  of  mastication  and  deglutition; 
his  color  rises  and  spreads  to  his  gray  hair  or 
over  his  baldness;  his  person  seems  to  swell 
vividly  in  his  chair,  and  when  he  laughs — " 

'  *  Don't,  Florindo !    It  is  awful. ' ' 

"Well,  perhaps  no  worse  than  the  sight  of  a 
middle-aged  matron  tending  to  overweight  and 
bulking  above  her  plate — " 

"Yes,  yes!  That's  dreadful, . too.  But  when 
people  are  young — " 

"Oh,  when  people  are  young!"  He  said  this 
in  despair.  Then  he  went  on  in  an  audible  muse. 
"When  people  are  young  they  are  not  only  in 
their  own  youth;  they  are  in  the  youth  of  the 

230 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

world,  the  race.  .They  dine,  but  they  don't  think 
of  the  dinner  or  the  unpleasantness  of  the  diners, 
and  the  grotesqueness  of  feeding  in  common. 
They  think — "  he  broke  off  in  defect  of  other 
ideas,  and  concluded  with  a  laugh,  "they  think 
of  themselves.  And  they  don't  think  of  how 
they  are  looking." 

"They  needn't;  they  are  looking  very  well. 
Don't  keep  harping  on  that!  I  remember  when 
we  first  began  going  to  dinners,  I  thought  it  was 
the  most  beautiful  thing  in  the  world.  I  don't 
mean  when  I  was  a  girl;  a  girl  only  goes  to  a 
dinner  because  it  comes  before  a  dance.  I  mean 
when  we  were  young  married  people ;  and  I  pinned 
up  my  dress  and  we  went  in  the  horse-cars,  or 
even  walked.  I  enjoyed  every  instant  of  it:  the 
finding  who  was  going  to  take  me  in  and  who  you 
were;  and  the  going  in;  and  the  hovering  round 
the  table  to  find  our  places  from  the  cards;  and 
the  seeing  how  you  looked  next  some  one  else, 
and  wondering  how  you  thought  I  looked;  and 
the  beads  sparkling  up  through  the  champagne 
and  getting  into  one's  nose;  and  the  laughing  and 
joking  and  talking!  Oh,  the  talking!  What's 
become  of  it?  The  talking,  last  night,  it  bored 
me  to  death!  And  what  good  stories  people  used 
to  tell,  women  as  well  as  men!  You  can't  deny 
it  was  beautiful.'* 

231 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

"I  don't;  and  I  don't  deny  that  the  forms  of 
dining  are  still  charming.  It's  the  dining  itself 
that  I  object  to." 

11  That's  because  your  digestion  is  bad." 

"Isn't  yours?" 

"Of  course  it  is.  What  has  that  got  to  do 
with  it?" 

"It  seems  to  me  that  we  have  arrived  at  what 
is  called  an  impasse  in  French."  He  looked  up 
at  the  clock  on  the  wall,  and  she  gave  a  little  jump 
in  her  chair.  "Oh,  there's  plenty  of  time.  The 
taxi  won't  be  here  for  half  an  hour  yet.  Is  there 
any  heat  left  in  that  coffee?" 

"There  will  be,"  she  said,  and  she  lighted  the 
lamp  under  the  pot.  "But  I  don't  like  being 
scared  out  of  half  a  year's  growth." 

"I'm  sorry.  I  won't  look  at  the  clock  any 
more;  I  don't  care  if  we're  left.  Where  were  we? 
Oh,  I  remember — the  objection  to  dining  itself. 
If  we  could  have  the  forms  without  the  facts, 
dining  would  be  all  right.  Our  superstition  is 
that  we  can't  be  gay  without  gorging;  that  society 
can't  be  run  without  meat  and  drink.  But  don't 
you  remember  when  we  first  went  to  Italy  there 
was  no  supper  at  Italian  houses  where  we  thought 
it  such  a  favor  to  be  asked?" 

"I  remember  that  the  young  Italian  swells 
wouldn't  go  to  the  American  and  English  houses 

232 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

where  they  weren't  sure  of  supper.  They  didn't 
give  supper  at  the  Italian  houses  because  they 
couldn't  afford  it." 

"I  know  that.     I  believe  they  do,  now.     But — 

1  Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity/ 

and  the  fasting  made  for  beauty  then  more 
than  the  feasting  does  now.  It  was  a  lovelier 
sight  to  see  the  guests  of  those  Italian  houses 
conversing  together  without  the  grossness  of  feed 
ing  or  being  fed — the  sort  of  thing  one  saw  at  our 
houses  when  people  went  out  to  supper." 

"I  wonder,"  Lindora  said,  " whether  the  same 
sort  of  thing  goes  on  at  evening  parties  still  —  it's 
so  long  since  I've  been  at  one.  It  was  awful  stand 
ing  jammed  up  in  a  corner  or  behind  a  door  and 
eating  vis-d-vis  with  a  man  who  brought  you  a 
plate;  and  it  wasn't  much  better  when  you  sat 
down  and  he  stood  over  you  gabbling  and  gob 
bling,  with  his  plate  in  one  hand  and  his  fork  in 
the  other.  I  was  always  afraid  of  his  dropping 
things  into  my  lap;  and  the  sight  of  his  jaws 
champing  as  you  looked  up  at  them  from  below!" 

"Yes,  ridiculous.  But  there  was  an  element  of 
the  grotesque  in  a  bird's-eye  view  of  a  lady  mak 
ing  shots  at  her  mouth  with  a  spoon  and  trying 
to  smile  and  look  spirituelle  between  the  shots." 

Lindora  as  she  laughed  bowed  her  forehead  on 
233 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

the  back  of  her  hand  in  the  way  Florindo  thought 
so  pretty  when  they  were  both  young.  "Yes," 
she  said,  "awful,  awful!  Why  should  people  want 
to  flock  together  when  they  feed?  Do  you  sup 
pose  it's  a  survival  of  the  primitive  hospitality 
when  those  who  had  something  to  eat  hurried 
to  share  it  with  those  who  had  nothing?" 

"Possibly,"  Florindo  said,  flattered  into  con 
sequence  by  her  momentary  deference,  or  show  of 
it.  "But  the  people  who  mostly  meet  to  feed 
together  now  are  not  hungry;  they  are  already  so 
stuffed  that  they  loathe  the  sight  of  the  things. 
Some  of  them  shirk  the  consequences  by  frankly 
dining  at  home  first,  and  then  openly  or  covertly 
dodging  the  courses." 

"Yes,  and  you  hear  that  praised  as  a  mark  of 
high  civilization,  or  social  wisdom.  I  call  it 
wicked,  and  an  insult  to  the  very  genius  of  hos 
pitality." 

"Well,  I  don't  know.  It  must  give  the  faster 
a  good  chance  of  seeing  how  funny  the  feeders 
all  look." 

"I  wonder,  I  do  wonder,  how  the  feeding  in 
common  came  to  be  the  custom,"  she  said, 
thoughtfully.  "Of  course  where  it's  done  for 
convenience,  like  hotels  or  in  boarding-houses — 
but  to  do  it  wantonly,  as  people  do  in  society, 
it  ought  to  be  stopped." 

234 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

"We  might  call  art  to  our  aid — have  a  large 
tableful  of  people  kodaked  in  the  moments  of  in 
gulfing,  chewing,  or  swallowing,  as  the  act  varied 
from  guest  to  guest;  might  be  reproduced  as 
picture  postals,  or  from  films  for  the  movies. 
That  would  give  the  ten  and  twenty  cent  au 
diences  a  chance  to  see  what  life  in  the  exclusive 
circles  was." 

She  listened  in  dreamy  inattention.  "It  was  a 
step  in  the  right  direction  when  people  began  to 
have  afternoon  teas.  To  be  sure,  there  was  the 
biting  and  chewing  sandwiches,  but  you  needn't 
take  them,  and  most  women  could  manage  their 
teacups  gracefully." 

"Or  hide  their  faces  in  them  when  they 
couldn't." 

"Only,"  she  continued,  "the  men  wouldn't 
come  after  the  first  go  off.  It  was  as  bad  as 
lunches.  Now  that  the  English  way  of  serving 
tea  to  callers  has  come  in,  it's  better.  You  really 
get  the  men,  and  it  keeps  them  from  taking  cock 
tails  so  much." 

"They're  rather  glad  of  that.  But  still,  still, 
there's  the  guttling  and  guzzling." 

"It's  reduced  to  a  minimum." 

"But  it's  there.  And  the  first  thing  you  know 
you've  loaded  yourself  up  with  cake  or  bread- 
and-butter  and  spoiled  your  appetite  for  dinner. 

235 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

No,  afternoon  tea  must  go  with  the  rest  of  it,  if 
we're  going  to  be  truly  civilized.  If  people  could 
come  to  one  another's  tables  with  full  minds  in 
stead  of  stomachs,  there  would  be  some  excuse 
for  hospitality.  Perhaps  if  we  reversed  the  prac 
tice  of  the  professional  diner-out,  and  read  up 
at  home  as  he  now  eats  at  home,  and —  No,  I 
don't  see  how  it  could  be  done.  But  we  might 
take  a  leaf  from  the  book  of  people  who  are  not 
in  society.  They  never  ask  anybody  to  meals  if 
they  can  possibly  help  it ;  if  some  one  happens  in 
at  meal-times  they  tell  him  to  pull  up  a  chair — if 
they  have  to,  or  he  shows  no  signs  first  of  going. 
But  even  among  these  people  the  instinct  of  hos 
pitality — the  feeding  form  of  it — lurks  somewhere. 
In  our  farm-boarding  days — " 

" Don't  speak  of  them!"  she  implored. 

"We  once  went  to  an  evening  party,"  he  pur 
sued,  "where  raw  apples  and  cold  water  were 
served." 

"I  thought  I  should  die  of  hunger.  And  when 
we  got  home  to  our  own  farmer's  we  ravaged  the 
pantry  for  everything  left  from  supper.  It  wasn't 
much.  There!"  Lindora  screamed.  "There  is 
the  taxi!"  And  the  shuddering  sound  of  the 
clock  making  time  at  their  expense  penetrated 
from  the  street.  ' '  Come !' ' 

"How  the  instinct  of  economy  lingers  in  us, 
236 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

too,  long  after  the  use  of  it  is  outgrown.  It's  as 
bad  as  the  instinct  of  hospitality.  We  could  easily 
afford  to  pay  extra  for  the  comfort  of  sitting  here 
over  these  broken  victuals — " 

"I  tell  you  we  shall  be  left,"  she  retorted;  and 
in  the  thirty-five  minutes  they  had  at  the  station 
before  their  train  started  she  outlined  a  scheme  of 
social  reform  which  she  meant  to  put  in  force  as 
soon  as  people  began  to  gather  in  summer  force 
at  Lobster  Cove. 

He  derided  the  notion;  but  she  said,  "You  will 
see!"  and  in  rather  more  time  than  it  takes  to 
tell  it  they  were  settled  in  their  cottage,  where, 
after  some  unavoidable  changes  of  cook  and 
laundress,  they  were  soon  in  perfect  running 
order. 

By  this  time  Lobster  Cove  was  in  the  full  tide 
of  lunching  and  being  lunched.  The  lunches  were 
almost  exclusively  ladies'  lunches,  and  the  ladies 
came  to  them  with  appetites  sharpened  by  the 
incomparable  air  of  those  real  Lobster  Cove  days 
which  were  all  cloudless  skies  and  west  winds, 
and  by  the  vigorous  automobile  exercise  of  getting 
to  one  another's  cottages.  They  seized  every  pre 
text  for  giving  these  feasts,  marked  each  by  some 
vivid  touch  of  invention  within  the  limits  of  the 
graceful  convention  which  all  felt  bound  not  to 
transcend.  It  was  some  surprising  flavor  in  the 

237 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

salad,  or  some  touch  of  color  appealing  to  the  eye 
only;  or  it  was  some  touch  in  the  ice-cream,  or 
some  daring  substitution  of  a  native  dish  for  it, 
as  strawberry  or  peach  shortcake;  or  some  bold 
transposition  in  the  order  of  the  courses;  or  some 
capricious  arrangement  of  the  decoration,  or  the 
use  of  wild  flowers,  or  even  weeds  (as  meadow- 
rue  or  field-lilies),  for  the  local  florist's  flowers, 
which  set  the  ladies  screaming  at  the  moment 
and  talking  of  it  till  the  next  lunch.  This  would 
follow  perhaps  the  next  day,  or  the  next  but  one, 
according  as  a  new  cottager's  claims  insisted  or 
a  lady  had  a  change  of  guests,  or  three  days  at 
the  latest,  for  no  reason. 

In  their  rapid  succession  people  scarcely  noticed 
that  Lindora  had  not  given  a  lunch,  and  she  had 
so  far  abandoned  herself  to  the  enjoyment  of 
the  others'  lunches  that  she  had  half  forgotten 
her  high  purposes  of  reform,  when  she  was  sharply 
recalled  to  them  by  a  lunch  which  had  not  at  all 
agreed  with  her;  she  had,  in  fact,  had  to  have 
the  doctor,  and  many  people  had  asked  one  an 
other  whether  they  had  heard  how  she  was. 
Then  she  took  her  good  resolution  in  both  hands 
and  gave  an  afternoon,  asking  people  by  note  or 
'phone  simply  whether  they  would  not  come  in 
at  four  sharp.  People  were  a  good  deal  mystified, 
but  for  this  very  reason  everybody  came.  Some 

238 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

of  them  came  from  somebody's  lunch,  which  had 
been  so  nice  that  they  lingered  over  it  till  four, 
and  then  walked,  partly  to  fill  in  the  time  and 
partly  to  walk  off  the  lunch,  as  there  would  be 
sure  to  be  something  at  Lindora's  later  on. 

It  would  be  invidious  to  say  what  the  nature  of 
Lindora's  entertainment  was.  It  was  certainly  to 
the  last  degree  original,  and  those  who  said  the 
worst  of  it  could  say  no  worse  than  that  it  was 
queer.  It  quite  filled  the  time  till  six  o'clock, 
and  may  be  perhaps  best  described  as  a  negative 
rather  than  a  positive  triumph,  though  what 
Lindora  had  aimed  at  she  had  undoubtedly 
achieved.  Whatever  it  was,  whether  original  or 
queer,  it  was  certainly  novel. 

A  good  many  men  had  come,  one  at  least  to 
every  five  ladies,  but  as  the  time  passed  and  a 
certain  blankness  began  to  gather  over  the  spirits 
of  all,  they  fell  into  different  attitudes  of  the 
despair  which  the  ladies  did  their  best  to  pass  off 
for  rapture.  At  each  unscheduled  noise  they 
started  in  a  vain  expectation,  and  when  the  end 
came,  it  came  so  without  accent,  so  without  any 
thing  but  the  clock  to  mark  it  as  the  close,  that 
they  could  hardly  get  themselves  together  for 
going  away.  They  did  what  was  nice  and  right, 
of  course,  in  thanking  Lindora  for  her  fascinating 
afternoon,  but  when  they  were  well  beyond  hear- 

239 


A  FEAST  OF  REASON 

ing  one  said  to  another:  "Well,  I  shall  certainly 
have  an  appetite  for  my  dinner  to-night!  Why,  if 
there  had  only  been  a  cup  of  the  weakest  kind  of 
tea,  or  even  of  cold  water!" 

Then  those  who  had  come  in  autos  gathered 
as  many  pedestrians  into  them  as  they  would  hold 
in  leaving  the  house,  or  caught  them  up  fainting 
by  the  way. 

Lindora  and  Florindo  watched  them  from  their 
veranda. 

"Well,  my  dear,"  he  said,  "it's  been  a  wonder 
ful  afternoon;  an  immense  stride  forward  in  the 
cause  of  anti-eating — or — " 

"Don't  speak  to  me!"  she  cried. 

"But  it  leaves  one  rather  hungry,  doesn't  it?" 

"Hungry!"  she  hurled  back  at  him.  "I  could 
eat  a — I  don't  know  what!" 


CITY   AND    COUNTRY   IN 
THE    FALL 


XV 
CITY  AND  COUNTRY  IN  THE  FALL 

A  Long-distance  Eclogue 
1902 

Morrison.  Hello!    Hello!    Is  that  you,  Weth- 

erbee? 
Wetherbee.  Yes.   Who  are  you?    What  do  you 

want  with  me? 
Morrison.  Oh,  nothing  much.     It's  Morrison, 

you  know; 
Morrison — down  at  Clamhurst  Shortsands. 

Wetherbee.  Oh! 

Why,  Morrison,  of  course!    Of  course,  I  know! 
How  are  you,  Morrison?    And,  by  the  way, 
Where  are  you?    What!    You  never  mean  to  say 
You  are  down  there  yet?    Well,   by  the  Holy 

Poker! 

What  are  you  doing  there,  you  ancient  joker? 
Morrison.  Sticking  it  out  over   Thanksgiving 

Day. 

I  said  I  would.     I  tell  you,  it  is  gay 

243 


CITY  AND  COUNTRY  IN  THE  FALL 

Down  here.     You  ought  to  see  the  Hunter's  Moon, 
These  silver  nights,  prinking  in  our  lagoon. 
You  ought  to  see  our  sunsets,  glassy  red, 
Shading  to  pink  and  violet  overhead. 
You  ought  to  see  our  mornings,  still  and  clear, 
White  silence,  far  as  you  can  look  and  hear. 
You  ought  to  see  the  leaves — our  oaks  and  ashes 
Crimson  and  yellow,  with  those  gorgeous  splashes, 
Purple  and  orange,  against  the  bluish  green 
Of  the  pine  woods;    and  scattered  in  between 
The  scarlet  of  the  maples;    and  the  blaze 
Of  blackberry-vines,  along  the  dusty  ways 
And  on  the  old  stone  walls;    the  air  just  balm, 
And  the  crows  cawing  through  the  perfect  calm 
Of  afternoons  all  gold  and  turquoise.     Say, 
You  ought  to  have  been  with  wife  and  me  to-day, 
A  drive  we  took — it  would  have  made  you  sick: 
The  pigeons  and  the  partridges  so  thick; 
And  on  the  hill  just  beyond  Barkin's  lane, 
Before  you  reach  the  barn  of  Widow  Payne, 
Showing  right  up  against  the  sky,  as  clear 
And  motionless  as  sculpture,  stood  a  deer! 
Say,  does  that  jar  you  just  a  little?    Say, 
How  have  you  found  things  up  there,   anyway, 
Since  you  got  back?    Air  like  a  cotton  string 
To  breathe?    The  same  old  dust  on  everything, 
And  in  your  teeth,  and  in  your  eyes?    The  smoke 
From  the  soft  coal,  got  long  beyond  a  joke? 

244 


CITY  AND  COUNTRY  IN  THE  FALL 

The  trolleys  rather  more  upon  your  curves, 
And  all  the  roar  and  clatter  in  your  nerves? 
Don't  you  wish  you  had  stayed  here,  too? 

Wetherbee.  Well,  yes, 

I  do  at  certain  times,  I  must  confess. 
I  swear  it  is  enough  at  times  to  make  you  swear 
You  would  almost  rather  be  anywhere 
Than  here.     The  building  up  and  pulling  down, 
The  getting  to  and  fro  about  the  town, 
The  turmoil  underfoot  and  overhead, 
Certainly  make  you  wish  that  you  were  dead, 
At  first;   and  all  the  mean  vulgarity 
Of  city  life,  the  filth  and  misery 
You  see  around  you,  make  you  want  to  put 
Back  to  the  country  anywhere,  hot-foot. 
Yet — there  are  compensations. 

Morrison.  Such  as? 

Wetherbee.  Why, 

There  is  the  club. 

Morrison.  The  club  I  can't  deny. 

Many  o*  the  fellows  back  there? 

Wetherbee.  Nearly  all. 

Over  the  twilight  cocktails  there  are  tall 
Stories  and  talk.     But  you  would  hardly  care; 
You  have  the  natives  to  talk  with  down  there, 
And  always  find  them  meaty. 

Morrison.  Well,  so-so. 

Their  words  outlast  their  ideas  at  times,  you  know, 

245 


CITY  AND  COUNTRY  IN  THE  FALL 

And  they  have  staying  powers.    The  theaters 
All  open  now? 

Wetherbee.         Yes,  all.  And  it  occurs 
To  me:    there's  one  among  the  things  that  you 
Would  have  enjoyed;    an  opera  with  the  new — 
Or  at  least  the  last — music  by  Sullivan, 
And  words,  though  not  Gilbertian,  that  ran 
Trippingly  with  it.     Oh,  I  tell  you  what, 
I'd  rather  that  you  had  been  there  than  not. 
Morrison.  Thanks  ever  so! 
Wetherbee,  Oh,  there  is  nothing  mean 

About  your  early  friend.     That  deer  and  autumn 

scene 

Were  kind  of  you!    And,  say,  I  think  you  like 
Afternoon  teas  when  good.     I  have  chanced  to 

strike 

Some  of  the  best  of  late,  where  people  said 
They  had  sent  you  cards,  but  thought  you  must 

be  dead. 

I  told  them  I  left  you  down  there  by  the  sea, 
And  then  they  sort  of  looked  askance  at  me, 
As  if  it  were  a  joke,  and  bade  me  get 
Myself  some  bouillon  or  some  chocolate, 
And  turned  the  subject — did  not  even  give 
Me  time  to  prove  it  is  not  life  to  live 
In  town  as  long  as  you  can  keep  from  freezing 
Beside  the  autumn  sea.     A  little  sneezing, 
At  Clamhurst  Shortsands,  since  the  frosts  set  in? 

246 


CITY  AND  COUNTRY  IN  THE  FALL 

Morrison.  Well,   not  enough  to  make  a  true 

friend  grin. 

Slight  colds,  mere  nothings.     With  our  open  fires 
We've  all  the  warmth  and  cheer  that  heart  desires. 
Next  year  we'll  have  a  furnace  in,  and  stay 
Not  till  Thanksgiving,  but  till  Christmas  Day. 
It's  glorious  in  these  roomy  autumn  nights 
To  sit  between  the  firelight  and  the  lights  • 
Of  our  big  lamps,  and  read  aloud  by  turns 
As  long  as  kerosene  or  hickory  burns. 
We  hate  to  go  to  bed. 

Wetherbee.  Of  course  you  do! 

And  hate  to  get  up  in  the  morning,  too — 
To  pull  the  coverlet  from  your  frost-bit  nose, 
And  touch  the  glary  matting  with  your  toes! 
Are  you  beginning  yet  to  break  the  ice 
In  your  wash-pitchers?     No?    Well,  that  is  nice. 
I  always  hate  to  do  it — seems  as  if 
Summer  was  going;   but  when  your  hand  is  stiff 
With  cold,  it  can  be  done.     Still,  I  prefer 
To  wash  and  dress  beside  my  register, 
When  summer  gets  a  little  on,  like  this. 
But  some  folks  find  the  other  thing  pure  bliss — 
Lusty  young  chaps,  like  you. 

Morrison.  And  some  folks  find 

A  sizzling  radiator  to  their  mind. 
What  else  have  you,  there,  you  could  recommend 
To  the  attention  of  a  country  friend? 

247 


CITY  AND  COUNTRY  IN  THE  FALL 

Wetherbee.  Well,  you  know  how  it  is  in  Madi 
son  Square, 

Late  afternoons,  now,  if  the  day's  been  fair — 
How  all  the  western  sidewalk  ebbs  and  flows 
With  pretty  women  in  their  pretty  clo'es: 
I've  never  seen  them  prettier  than  this  year. 
Of  course,  I  know  a  dear  is  not  a  deer, 
But  still,  I  think  that  if  I  had  to  meet 
One  or  the  other  in  the  road,  or  street, 
All  by  myself,  I  am  not  sure  but  that 
I'd    choose   the   dear    that   wears    the    fetching 
hat. 

Morrison.  Get  out!    What  else? 

Wetherbee.  Well,  it  is  not  so  bad, 

If  you  are  feeling  a  little  down,  or  sad, 
To  walk  along  Fifth  Avenue  to  the  Park, 
When  the  day  thinks  perhaps  of  getting  dark, 
And  meet  that  mighty  flood  of  vehicles 
Laden  with  all  the  different  kinds  of  swells, 
Homing  to  dinner,  in  their  carriages — 
Victorias,  landaus,  chariots,  coupe's — 
There's  nothing  like  it  to  lift  up  the  heart 
And  make  you  realize  yourself  a  part, 
Sure,  of  the  greatest  show  on  earth. 

Morrison.  Oh,  yes, 

I  know.     I've  felt  that  rapture  more  or  less. 
But  I  would  rather  put  it  off  as  long 
As  possible.     I  suppose  you  like  the  song 

248 


CITY  AND  COUNTRY  IN  THE  FALL 

Of  the  sweet  car-gongs  better  than  the  cry 
Of  jays  and  yellowhammers  when  the  sky 
Begins  to  redden  these  October  mornings, 
And  the  loons  sound  their  melancholy  warnings; 
Or  honk  of  the  wild-geese  that  write  their  A 
Along  the  horizon  in  the  evening's  gray. 
Or  when  the  squirrels  look  down  on  you  and  bark 
From  the  nut  trees — 

Wetherbee.  We  have  them  in  the  Park 

Plenty  enough.     But,  say,  you  aged  sinner, 
Have  you  been  out  much  recently  at  dinner? 

Morrison.  What    do    you    mean?    You   know 

there's  no  one  here 
That  dines  except  ourselves  now. 

Wetherbee.  Well,  that's  queer! 

I  thought  the  natives —    But  I  recollect! 
It  was  not  reasonable  to  expect — 

Morrison.  What  are  you  driving  at? 

Wetherbee.  Oh,  nothing  much. 

But  I  was  thinking  how  you  come  in  touch 
With  life  at  the  first  dinner  in  the  fall, 
When  you  get  back,  first,  as  you  can't  at  all 
Later  along.     But  you,  of  course,  won't  care 
With  your  idyllic  pleasures. 

Morrison.  Who  was  there? 

Wetherbee.  Oh — ha,  ha!    What  d'you  mean  by 
there? 

Morrison.  Come  off! 

249 


CITY  AND  COUNTRY  IN  THE  FALL 

Wetherbee.  What!    you   remain   to   pray   that 
came  to  scoff! 

Morrison.  You  know  what  I  am  after. 

Wetherbee.  Yes,  that  dinner. 

Just  a  round  dozen:    Ferguson  and  Binner 
For  the  fine  arts;    Bowyer  the  novelist; 
Dr.  Le  Martin;    the  psychologist 
Fletcher;    the  English  actor  Philipson; 
The  two  newspaper  Witkins,  Bob  and  John; 
A  nice  Bostonian,  Bane  the  archseologer, 
And  a  queer  Russian  amateur  astrologer; 
And  Father  Gray,  the  jolly  ritualist  priest, 
And  last  your  humble  servant,  but  not  least. 
The  food  was  not  so  filthy,  and  the  wine 
Was  not  so  poison.     We  made  out  to  dine 
From  eight  till  one  A.M.     One  could  endure 
The  dinner.     But,  oh  say!     The  talk  was  poor! 
Your  natives  down  at  Clamhurst — 

Morrison.  Look  ye  here! 

What  date  does  Thanksgiving  come  on  this  year? 

Wetherbee.  Why,  I  suppose — although  I  don't 

remember 
Certainly — the  usual  28th  November. 

Morrison.  Novem —  You  should  have  waited 

to  get  sober! 

It  comes  on  the  nth  of  October! 
And  that's  to-morrow;   and  if  you  happen  down 
Later,  you'd  better  look  for  us  in  town. 

250 


TABLE    TALK 


XVI 
TABLE  TALK 

'"THEY  were  talking  after  dinner  in  that  cozy 
•*•  moment  when  the  conversation  has  ripened, 
just  before  the  coffee,  into  mocking  guesses  and 
laughing  suggestions.  The  thing  they  were  talk 
ing  of  was  something  that  would  have  held  them 
apart  if  less  happily  timed  and  placed,  but  then 
and  there  it  drew  these  together  in  what  most 
of  them  felt  a  charming  and  flattering  intimacy. 
Not  all  of  them  took  part  in  the  talk,  and  of  those 
who  did,  none  perhaps  assumed  to  talk  with  au 
thority  or  finality.  At  first  they  spoke  of  the 
subject  as  it,  forbearing  to  name  it,  as  if  the 
name  of  it  would  convey  an  unpleasant  shock, 
out  of  temper  with  the  general  feeling. 

"I  don't  suppose,"  the  host  said,  "that  it's 
really  so  much  commoner  than  it  used  to  be.  But 
the  publicity  is  more  invasive  and  explosive. 
That's  perhaps  because  it  has  got  higher  up  in 
the  world  and  has  spread  more  among  the  first 
circles.  The  time  was  when  you  seldom  heard  of 

253 


TABLE  TALK 

it  there,  and  now  it  is  scarcely  a  scandal.  I  re 
member  that  when  I  went  abroad,  twenty  or 
thirty  years  ago,  and  the  English  brought  me  to 
book  about  it,  I  could  put  them  down  by  saying 
that  I  didn't  know  a  single  divorced  person." 

"And  of  course,"  a  bachelor  guest  ventured, 
"a  person  of  that  sort  must  be  single." 

At  first  the  others  did  not  take  the  joke;  then 
they  laughed,  but  the  women  not  so  much  as  the 
men. 

"And  you  couldn't  say  that  now?"  the  lady  on 
the  right  of  the  host  inquired. 

"Why,  I  don't  know,"  he  returned,  thought 
fully,  after  a  little  interval.  "I  don't  just  call  one 
to  mind." 

"Then,"  the  bachelor  said,  "that  classes  you. 
If  you  moved  in  our  best  society  you  would  cer 
tainly  know  some  of  the  many  smart  people  whose 
disunions  alternate  with  the  morning  murders  in 
the  daily  papers." 

"Yes,  the  fact  seems  to  rank  me  rather  low; 
but  I'm  rather  proud  of  the  fact." 

The  hostess  seemed  not  quite  to  like  this  arro 
gant  humility.  She  said,  over  the  length  of  the 
table  (it  was  not  very  long),  "I'm  sure  you  know 
some  very  nice  people  who  have  not  been." 

"Well,  yes,  I  do.  But  are  they  really  smart 
people?  They're  of  very  good  family,  certainly." 

254 


TABLE  TALK 

"You  mustn't  brag,"  the  bachelor  said. 

A  husband  on  the  right  of  the  hostess  wondered 
if  there  were  really  more  of  the  thing  than  there 
used  to  be. 

"Qualitatively,  yes,  I  should  say.  Quantita 
tively,  I'm  not  convinced,"  the  host  answered. 
"In  a  good  many  of  the  States  it's  been  made 
difficult." 

The  husband  on  the  right  of  the  hostess  was 
not  convinced,  he  said,  as  to  the  qualitative  in 
crease.  The  parties  to  the  suits  were  rich  enough, 
and  sometimes  they  were  high  enough  placed  and 
far  enough  derived.  But  there  was  nearly  always 
a  leak  in  them,  a  social  leak  somewhere,  on  one 
side  or  the  other.  They  could  not  be  said  to  be 
persons  of  quality  in  the  highest  sense." 

"Why,  persons  of  quality  seldom  can  be,"  the 
bachelor  contended. 

The  girl  opposite,  who  had  been  invited  to 
balance  him  in  the  scale  of  celibacy  by  the  hostess 
in  her  study  of  her  dinner-party,  first  smiled,  and 
then  alleged  a  very  distinguished  instance  of  di 
vorce  in  which  the  parties  were  both  of  immacu 
late  origin  and  unimpeachable  fashion.  "No 
body,"  she  said,  "can  accuse  them  of  a  want  of 
quality. ' '  She  was  good-looking,  though  no  longer 
so  young  as  she  could  have  wished;  she  flung  out 
her  answer  to  the  bachelor  defiantly,  but  she  ad- 

255 


TABLE  TALK 

dressed  it  to  the  host,  and  he  said  that  was  true; 
certainly  it  was  a  signal  case;  but  wasn't  it  ex 
ceptional?  The  others  mentioned  like  cases, 
though  none  quite  so  perfect,  and  then  there  was 
a  lull  till  the  husband  on  the  left  of  the  hostess 
noted  a  fact  which  renewed  the  life  of  the  dis 
cussion. 

"There  was  a  good  deal  of  agitation,  six  or  eight 
years  ago,  about  it.  I  don't  know  whether  the 
agitation  accomplished  anything." 

The  host  believed  it  had  influenced  legislation. 

"For  or  against?"  the  bachelor  inquired. 

"Oh,  against." 

"But  in  other  countries  it's  been  coming  in 
more  and  more.  It  seems  to  be  as  easy  in  Eng 
land  now  as  it  used  to  be  in  Indiana.  In  France 
it's  nothing  scandalous,  and  in  Norwegian  society 
you  meet  so  many  disunited  couples  in  a  state  of 
quadruplicate  reunion  that  it  is  very  embarrass 
ing.  It  doesn't  seem  to  bother  the  parties  to  the 
new  relation  themselves." 

"It's  very  common  in  Germany,  too,"  the  hus 
band  on  the  right  of  the  hostess  said. 

The  husband  on  her  left  side  said  he  did  not 
know  just  how  it  was  in  Italy  and  Spain,  and  no 
one  offered  to  disperse  his  ignorance. 

In  the  silence  which  ensued  the  lady  on  the  left 
of  the  host  created  a  diversion  in  her  favor  by 

256 


TABLE  TALK 

saying  that  she  had  heard  they  had  a  very  good 
law  in  Switzerland. 

Being  asked  to  tell  what  it  was,  she  could  not 
remember,  but  her  husband,  on  the  right  of  the 
hostess,  saved  the  credit  of  his  family  by  supply 
ing  her  defect.  "Oh,  yes.  It's  very  curious. 
We  heard  of  it  when  we  were  there.  When  peo 
ple  want  to  be  put  asunder,  for  any  reason  or 
other,  they  go  before  a  magistrate  and  declare 
their  wish.  Then  they  go  home,  and  at  the  end 
of  a  certain  time — weeks  or  months — the  magis 
trate  summons  them  before  him  with  a  view  to 
reconciliation.  If  they  come,  it  is  a  good  sign; 
if  they  don't  come,  or  come  and  persist  in  their 
desire,  then  they  are  summoned  after  another 
interval,  and  are  either  reconciled  or  put  asunder, 
as  the  case  may  be,  or  as  they  choose.  It  is  not 
expensive,  and  I  believe  it  isn't  scandalous." 

"It  seems  very  sensible,"  the  husband  on  the 
left  of  the  hostess  said,  as  if  to  keep  the  other 
husband  in  countenance.  But  for  an  interval  no 
one  else  joined  him,  and  the  mature  girl  said  to 
the  man  next  her  that  it  seemed  rather  cold 
blooded.  He  was  a  man  who  had  been  entreated 
to  come  in,  on  the  frank  confession  that  he  was 
asked  as  a  stop-gap,  the  original  guest  having 
fallen  by  the  way.  Such  men  are  apt  to  abuse 
their  magnanimity,  their  condescension.  They 
17  257 


TABLE  TALK 

think  that  being  there  out  of  compassion,  and  in 
compliance  with  a  hospitality  that  had  not  at 
first  contemplated  their  presence,  they  can  say 
anything;  they  are  usually  asked  without  but 
through  their  wives,  who  are  asked  to  "lend" 
them,  and  who  lend  them  with  a  grudge  veiled 
in  eager  acquiescence;  and  the  men  think  it  will 
afterward  advantage  them  with  their  wives,  when 
they  find  they  are  enjoying  themselves,  if  they 
will  go  home  and  report  that  they  said  something 
vexing  or  verging  on  the  offensive  to  their  hostess. 
This  man  now  addressed  himself  to  the  lady  at 
the  head  of  the  table. 

"Why  do  we  all  talk  as  if  we  thought  divorce 
was  an  unquestionable  evil?" 

The  hostess  looked  with  a  frightened  air  to  the 
right  and  left,  and  then  down  the  table  to  her 
husband.  But  no  one  came  to  her  rescue,  and 
she  asked  feebly,  as  if  foreboding  trouble  (for  she 
knew  she  had  taken  a  liberty  with  this  man's 
wife),  "Why,  don't  we?" 

"About  one  in  seven  of  us  doesn't,"  the  stop 
gap  said. 

"Oh !"  the  girl  beside  him  cried  out,  in  a  horror- 
stricken  voice  which  seemed  not  to  interpret  her 
emotion  truly.  "Is  it  so  bad  as  that?" 

"Perhaps  not  quite,  even  if  it  is  bad  at  all," 
he  returned,  and  the  hostess  smiled  gratefully  at 

258 


TABLE  TALK 

the  girl  for  drawing  his  fire.  But  it  appeared 
she  had  not,  for  he  directed  his  further  speech  at 
the  hostess  again:  really  the  most  inoffensive 
person  there,  and  the  least  able  to  contend  with 
adverse  opinions. 

"No,  I  don't  believe  we  do  think  it  an  unques 
tionable  evil,  unless  we  think  marriage  is  so." 
Everybody  sat  up,  as  the  stop-gap  had  intended, 
no  doubt,  and  he  "held  them  with  his  glittering 
eye,"  or  as  many  as  he  could  sweep  with  his  glance. 
"I  suppose  that  the  greatest  hypocrite  at  this 
table,  where  we  are  all  so  frankly  hypocrites  to 
gether,  will  not  deny  that  marriage  is  the  prime 
cause  of  divorce.  In  fact,  divorce  couldn't  exist 
without  it." 

The  women  all  looked  bewilderedly  at  one  an 
other,  and  then  appealingly  at  the  men.  None  of 
these  answered  directly,  but  the  bachelor  softly 
intoned  out  of  Gilbert  and  Sullivan — he  was  of 
that  date: 

"'A  paradox,  a  paradox; 

A  most  ingenious  paradox!' " 

"Yes,"  the  stop-gap  defiantly  assented.  "A 
paradox;  and  all  aboriginal  verities,  all  giant 
truths,  are  paradoxes." 

"Giant  truths  is  good,"  the  bachelor  noted,  but 
the  stop-gap  did  not  mind  him. 

259 


TABLE  TALK 

He  turned  to  the  host:  "I  suppose  that  if 
divorce  is  an  evil,  and  we  wish  to  extirpate  it,  we 
must  strike  at  its  root,  at  marriage?'* 

The  host  laughed.  "I  prefer  not  to  take  the 
floor.  I'm  sure  we  all  want  to  hear  what  you 
have  to  say  in  support  of  your  mammoth  idea." 

"Oh  yes,  indeed,"  the  women  chorused,  but 
rather  tremulously,  as  not  knowing  what  might 
be  coming. 

"Which  do  you  mean?  That  all  truth  is  para 
doxical,  or  that  marriage  is  the  mother  of  di 
vorce?" 

"Whichever  you  like." 

"The  last  proposition  is  self-evident,"  the  stop 
gap  said,  supplying  himself  with  a  small  bunch 
of  the  grapes  which  nobody  ever  takes  at  dinner; 
the  hostess  was  going  to  have  coffee  for  the  women 
in  the  drawing-room,  and  to  leave  the  men  to 
theirs  with  their  tobacco  at  the  table.  "And  you 
must  allow  that  if  divorce  is  a  good  thing  or  a 
bad  thing,  it  equally  partakes  of  the  nature  of  its 
parent.  Or  else  there's  nothing  in  heredity." 

"Oh,  come!"  one  of  the  husbands  said. 

"Very  well!"  the  stop-gap  submitted.  "I 
yield  the  word  to  you."  But  as  the  other  went  no 
further,  he  continued.  "The  case  is  so  clear  that 
it  needs  no  argument.  Up  to  this  time,  in  dealing 
with  the  evil  of  divorce,  if  it  is  an  evil,  we  have 

260 


TABLE  TALK 

simply  been  suppressing  the  symptoms ;  and  your 
Swiss  method — " 

"Oh,  it  isn't  mine,'1  the  man  said  who  had 
stated  it. 

11 — Is  only  a  part  of  the  general  practice.  It  is 
another  attempt  to  make  divorce  difficult,  when 
it  is  marriage  that  ought  to  be  made  difficult." 

"Some,"  the  daring  bachelor  said,  "think  it 
ought  to  be  made  impossible."  The  girl  across 
the  table  began  to  laugh  hysterically,  but  caught 
herself  up  and  tried  to  look  as  if  she  had  not 
laughed  at  all. 

"I  don't  go  as  far  as  that,"  the  stop-gap  re 
sumed,  "but  as  an  inveterate  enemy  of  divorce — " 

An  "Oh!"  varying  from  surprise  to  derision 
chorused  up ;  but  he  did  not  mind  it ;  he  went  on 
as  if  uninterrupted. 

"I  should  put  every  possible  obstacle,  and  at 
every  step,  in  the  way  of  marriage.  The  attitude 
of  society  toward  marriage  is  now  simply  pre 
posterous,  absolutely  grotesque.  Society?  The 
whole  human  framework  in  all  its  manifestations, 
social,  literary,  religious,  artistic,  and  civic,  is 
perpetually  guilty  of  the  greatest  mischief  in  the 
matter.  Nothing  is  done  to  retard  or  prevent 
marriage;  everything  to  accelerate  and  promote 
it.  Marriage  is  universally  treated  as  a  virtue 
which  of  itself  consecrates  the  lives  of  the  mostly 

261 


TABLE  TALK 

vulgar  and  entirely  selfish  young  creatures  who 
enter  into  it.  The  blind  and  witless  passion  in 
which  it  oftenest  originates,  at  least  with  us,  is 
flattered  out  of  all  semblance  to  its  sister  emotions, 
and  revered  as  if  it  were  a  celestial  inspiration, 
a  spiritual  impulse.  But  is  it?  I  defy  any  one 
here  to  say  that  it  is/1 

As  if  they  were  afraid  of  worse  things  if  they 
spoke,  the  company  remained  silent.  But  this 
did  not  save  them. 

"You  all  know  it  isn't.  You  all  know  that  it 
is  the  caprice  of  chance  encounter,  the  result  of 
propinquity,  the  invention  of  poets  and  novelists, 
the  superstition  of  the  victims,  the  unscrupulous 
make-believe  of  the  witnesses.  As  an  impulse  it 
quickly  wears  itself  out  in  marriage,  and  makes 
way  for  divorce.  In  this  country  nine-tenths  of 
the  marriages  are  love-matches.  The  old  motives 
which  delay  and  prevent  marriage  in  other 
countries,  aristocratic  countries,  like  questions  of 
rank  and  descent,  even  of  money/  do  not  exist. 
Yet  this  is  the  land  of  unhappy  unions  beyond 
all  other  lands,  the  very  home  of  divorce.  The 
conditions  of  marriage  are  ideally  favorable  ac 
cording  to  the  opinions  of  its  friends,  who  are  all 
more  or  less  active  in  bottling  husbands  and  wives 
up  in  its  felicity  and  preventing  their  escape 
through  divorce." 

262 


TABLE  TALK 

Still  the  others  were  silent,  and  again  the  stop 
gap  triumphed  on.  "Now,  I  am  an  enemy  of 
divorce,  too;  but  I  would  have  it  begin  before 
marriage." 

4 'Rather  paradoxical  again?"  the  bachelor  alone 
had  the  hardihood  to  suggest. 

"Not  at  all.  I  am  quite  literal.  I  would  have 
it  begin  with  the  engagement.  I  would  have  the 
betrothed — the  mistress  and  the  lover — come  be 
fore  the  magistrate  or  the  minister,  and  declare 
their  motives  in  wishing  to  marry,  and  then  I 
would  have  him  reason  with  them,  and  represent 
that  they  were  acting  emotionally  in  obedience 
to  a  passion  which  must  soon  spend  itself,  or  a 
fancy  which  they  would  quickly  find  illusory.  If 
they  agreed  with  him,  well  and  good;  if  not,  he 
should  dismiss  them  to  their  homes,  for  say  three 
months,  to  think  it  over.  Then  he  should  summon 
them  again,  and  again  reason  with  them,  and  dis 
miss  them  as  before,  if  they  continued  obstinate. 
After  three  months  more,  he  should  call  them 
before  him  and  reason  with  them  for  the  last 
time.  If  they  persisted  in  spite  of  everything,  he 
should  marry  them,  and  let  them  take  the  con 
sequences." 

The  stop-gap  leaned  back  in  his  chair  defiantly, 
and  fixed  the  host  with  an  eye  of  challenge.  Upon 
the  whole  the  host  seemed  not  so  much  frightened. 

263 


TABLE  TALK 

He  said:  "I  don't  see  anything  so  original  in  all 
that.  It's  merely  a  travesty  of  the  Swiss  law  of 
divorce." 

"And  you  see  nothing  novel,  nothing  that 
makes  for  the  higher  civilization  in  the  applica 
tion  of  that  law  to  marriage?  You  all  approve 
of  that  law  because  you  believe  it  prevents  nine- 
tenths  of  the  divorces;  but  if  you  had  a  law  that 
would  similarly  prevent  nine-tenths  of  the  mar 
riages,  you  would  need  no  divorce  law  at  all." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know  that,"  the  hardy  bachelor 
said.  "What  about  the  one-tenth  of  the  mar 
riages  which  it  didn't  prevent?  Would  you  have 
the  parties  hopelessly  shut  up  to  them?  Would 
you  forbid  them  all  hope  of  escape?  Would  you 
have  no  divorce  for  any  cause  whatever?" 

"Yes,"  the  husband  on  the  right  of  the  hostess 
asked  (but  his  wife  on  the  right  of  the  host  looked 
as  if  she  wished  he  had  not  mixed  in),  "wouldn't 
more  unhappiness  result  from  that  one  marriage 
than  from  all  the  marriages  as  we  have  them  now?" 

"Aren't  you  both  rather  precipitate?"  the  stop 
gap  demanded.  "I  said,  let  the  parties  to  the 
final  marriage  take  the  consequences.  But  if 
these  consequences  were  too  dire,  I  would  not 
forbid  them  the  hope  of  relief.  I  haven't  thought 
the  matter  out  very  clearly  yet,  but  there  are  one 
or  two  causes  for  divorce  which  I  would  admit." 

264 


TABLE  TALK 

"Ah?"  the  host  inquired,  with  a  provisional 
smile. 

"Yes,  causes  going  down  into  the  very  nature 
of  things — the  nature  of  men  and  of  women. 
Incompatibility  of  temperament  ought  always  to 
be  very  seriously  considered  as  a  cause." 

"Yes?" 

"And,  above  all,"  and  here  the  stop-gap  swept 
the  board  with  his  eye,  "difference  of  sex." 

The  sort  of  laugh  which  expresses  uncertainty 
of  perception  and  conditional  approval  went  up. 

The  hostess  rose  with  rather  a  frightened  air. 
"Shall  we  leave  them  to  their  tobacco?"  she  said 
to  the  other  women. 

When  he  went  home  the  stop-gap  celebrated  his 
triumph  to  his  wife.  "I  don't  think  she'll  ask 
you  for  the  loan  of  me  again  to  fill  a  place  with 
out  you." 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  remotely.  "You  don't 
suppose  she'll  think  we  live  unhappily  together?" 


THE    ESCAPADE    OF    A 
GRANDFATHER 


XVII 
THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

"\\TELL,    what   are   you   doing    here?"   the 

*  »  younger  of  the  two  sages  asked,  with  a 
resolute  air  of  bonhomie,  as  he  dragged  himself 
over  the  asphalt  path,  and  sank,  gasping,  into 
the  seat  beside  the  other  in  the  Park.  His  senior 
lifted  his  head  and  looked  him  carefully  over  to 
make  sure  of  his  identity,  and  then  he  said : 

"I  suppose,  to  answer  your  fatuous  question, 
I  am  waiting  here  to  get  my  breath  before  I  move 
on ;  and  in  the  next  place,  I  am  watching  the  feet  of 
the  women  who  go  by  in  their  high-heeled  shoes." 

"How  long  do  you  think  it  will  take  you  to  get 
your  breath  in  the  atmosphere  of  these  motors?" 
the  younger  sage  pursued.  "And  you  don't  im 
agine  that  these  women  are  of  the  first  fashion, 
do  you?" 

"No,  but  I  imagine  their  shoes  are.  I  have 
been  calculating  that  their  average  heel  is  from 
an  inch  and  a  half  to  two  inches  high,  and  touches 

269 


THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

the  ground  in  the  circumference  of  a  twenty-five- 
cent  piece.  As  you  seem  to  be  fond  of  asking 
questions,  perhaps  you  will  like  to  answer  one. 
Why  do  you  think  they  do  it?" 

"Wear  shoes  like  that?'*  the  younger  returned, 
cheerily,  and  laughed  as  he  added,  "Because  the 
rest  do." 

"Mmm!"  the  elder  grumbled,  not  wholly 
pleased,  and  yet  not  refusing  the  answer.  He 
had  been  having  a  little  touch  of  grippe,  and  was 
somewhat  broken  from  his  wonted  cynicism.  He 
said:  "It's  very  strange,  very  sad.  Just  now 
there  was  such  a  pretty  young  girl,  so  sweet  and 
fine,  went  tottering  by  as  helpless,  in  any  exigency, 
as  the  daughter  of  a  thousand  years  of  bound-feet 
Chinese  women.  While  she  tilted  on,  the  nice 
young  fellow  with  her  swept  forward  with  one 
stride  to  her  three  on  the  wide  soles  and  low  heels 
of  nature-last  boots,  and  kept  himself  from  out 
walking  her  by  a  devotion  that  made  him  grit 
his  teeth.  Probably  she  was  wiser  and  better  and 
brighter  than  he,  but  she  didn't  look  it;  and  I, 
who  voted  to  give  her  the  vote  the  other  day,  had 
my  misgivings.  I  think  I  shall  satisfy  myself  for 
the  next  five  years  by  catching  cold  in  taking  my 
hat  off  to  her  in  elevators,  and  getting  killed  by 
automobiles  in  helping  her  off  the  cars,  where  I've 
given  her  my  seat." 

270 


THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

"But  you  must  allow  that  if  her  shoes  are  too 
tight,  her  skirts  are  not  so  tight  as  they  were.  Or 
have  you  begun  sighing  for  the  good  old  hobble- 
skirts,  now  they're  gone?" 

"The  hobble-skirts  were  prettier  than  I  thought 
they  were  when  they  were  with  us,  but  the 
'tempestuous  petticoat'  has  its  charm,  which  I 
find  I'd  been  missing." 

"Well,  at  least  it's  a  change,"  the  younger  sage 
allowed,  "and  I  haven't  found  the  other  changes 
in  our  dear  old  New  York  which  I  look  for  when 
I  come  back  in  the  fall." 

The  sages  were  enjoying  together  the  soft 
weather  which  lingered  with  us  a  whole  month 
from  the  middle  of  October  onward,  and  the 
afternoon  of  their  meeting  in  the  Park  was  now 
softly  reddening  to  the  dim  sunset  over  the  west 
ward  trees. 

"Yes,"  the  elder  assented.  "I  miss  the  new 
sky-scrapers  which  used  to  welcome  me  back  up 
and  down  the  Avenue.  But  there  are  more  auto 
mobiles  than  ever,  and  the  game  of  saving  your 
life  from  them  when  you  cross  the  street  is  madder 
and  merrier  than  I  have  known  it  before." 

"The  war  seems  to  have  stopped  building  be 
cause  people  can't  afford  it,"  the  other  suggested, 
"but  it  has  only  increased  automobiling." 

"Well,  people  can't  afford  that,  either.  Nine- 
271 


THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

tenths  of  them  are  traveling  the  road  to  ruin,  I'm 
told,  and  apparently  they  can't  get  over  the  ground 
too  fast.  Just  look!"  and  the  sages  joined  in  the 
amused  and  mournful  contemplation  of  the  dif 
ferent  types  of  motors  innumerably  whirring  up 
and  down  the  drive  before  them,  while  they 
choked  in  the  fumes  of  the  gasolene. 

The  motors  were  not  the  costliest  types,  except 
in  a  few  instances,  and  in  most  instances  they 
were  the  cheaper  types,  such  as  those  who  could 
not  afford  them  could  at  least  afford  best.  The 
sages  had  found  a  bench  beside  the  walk  where 
the  statue  of  Daniel  Webster  looks  down  on  the 
confluence  of  two  driveways,  and  the  stream  of 
motors,  going  and  coming,  is  like  a  seething  torrent 
either  way. 

"The  mystery  is,"  the  elder  continued,  "why 
they  should  want  to  do  it  in  the  way  they  do  it. 
Are  they  merely  going  somewhere  and  must  get 
there  in  the  shortest  time,  possible,  or  are  they 
arriving  on  a  wager?  If  they  are  taking  a  pleas 
ure  drive,  what  a  droll  idea  of  pleasure  they  must 
have!  Maybe  they  are  trying  to  escape  Black 
Care,  but  they  must  know  he  sits  beside  the 
chauffeur  as  he  used  to  sit  behind  the  horseman, 
and  they  know  that  he  has  a  mortgage  in  his 
pocket,  and  can  foreclose  it  any  time  on  the  house 
they  have  hypothecated  to  buy  their  car.  Ah!" 

272 


THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

The  old  man  started  forward  with  the  involuntary 
impulse  of  rescue.  But  it  was  not  one  of  the  peo 
ple  who  singly,  or  in  terrorized  groups,  had  been 
waiting  at  the  roadside  to  find  their  way  across; 
it  was  only  a  hapless  squirrel  of  those  which  used 
to  make  their  way  safely  among  the  hoofs  and 
wheels  of  the  kind  old  cabs  and  carriages,  and  it 
lay  instantly  crushed  under  the  tire  of  a  motor. 
"He's  done  for,  poor  little  wretch!  They  can't 
get  used  to  the  change.  Some  day  a  policeman 
will  pick  me  up  from  under  a  second-hand  motor. 
I  wonder  what  the  great  Daniel  from  his  pedestal 
up  there  would  say  if  he  came  to  judgment." 

"He  wouldn't  believe  in  the  change  any  more 
than  that  squirrel.  He  would  decide  that  he 
was  dreaming,  and  would  sleep  on,  forgetting  and 
forgotten." 

"Forgotten,"  the  elder  sage  assented.  "I  re 
member  when  his  fame  filled  the  United  States, 
which  was  then  the  whole  world  to  me.  And  now 
I  don't  imagine  that  our  hyphenated  citizens  have 
the  remotest  consciousness  of  him.  If  Daniel  be 
gan  delivering  one  of  his  liberty-and-union-now- 
and-forever-one-and-inseparable  speeches,  they 
wouldn't  know  what  he  was  talking  about." 
The  sage  laughed  and  champed  his  toothless  jaws 
together,  as  old  men  do  in  the  effort  to  compose 
their  countenances  after  an  emotional  outbreak. 
18  273 


THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

"Well,  for  one  thing,"  the  younger  observed, 
"they  wouldn't  understand  what  he  said.  You 
will  notice,  if  you  listen  to  them  going  by,  that 
they  seldom  speak  English.  That's  getting  to  be 
a  dead  language  in  New  York,  though  it's  still 
used  in  the  newspapers."  He  thought  to  hearten 
the  other  with  his  whimsicality,  for  it  seemed  to 
him  that  the  elder  sage  was  getting  sensibly  older 
since  their  last  meeting,  and  that  he  would  be 
the  gayer  for  such  cheer  as  a  man  on  the  hither 
side  of  eighty  can  offer  a  man  on  the  thither. 
"Perhaps  the  Russian  Jews  would  appreciate 
Daniel  if  he  were  put  into  Yiddish  for  them. 
They're  the  brightest  intelligences  among  our 
hyphenates.  And  they  have  the  old-fashioned 
ideals  of  liberty  and  humanity,  perhaps  because 
they've  known  so  little  of  either." 

His  gaiety  did  not  seem  to  enliven  his  senior 
much.  "Ah,  the  old  ideals!"  he  sighed.  "The 
old  ideal  of  an  afternoon  airing  was  a  gentle  course 
in  an  open  carriage  on  a  soft  drive.  Now  it's  a 
vertiginous  whirl  on  an  asphalted  road,  round  and 
round  and  round  the  Park  till  the  victims  stagger 
with  their  brains  spinning  after  they  get  out  of 
their  cars." 

The  younger  sage  laughed.  "You've  been 
listening  to  the  pessimism  of  the  dear  old  fellows 
who  drive  the  few  lingering  victorias.  If  you'd 

274 


THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

believe  them,  all  these  people  in  the  motors  are 
chauffeurs  giving  their  lady-friends  joy-rides.'* 

"Few?"  the  elder  retorted.  " There  are  lots  of 
them.  I've  counted  twenty  in  a  single  round  of 
the  Park.  I  was  proud  to  be  in  one  of  them, 
though  my  horse  left  something  to  be  desired  in 
the  way  of  youth  and  beauty.  But  I  reflected 
that  I  was  not  very  young  or  beautiful  myself." 

As  the  sages  sat  looking  out  over  the  dizzying 
whirl  of  the  motors  they  smoothed  the  tops  of 
their  sticks  with  their  soft  old  hands,  and  were 
silent  oftener  than  not.  The  elder  seemed  to 
drowse  off  from  the  time  and  place,  but  he  was 
recalled  by  the  younger  saying,  "It  is  certainly 
astonishing  weather  for  this  season  of  the  year." 

The  elder  woke  up  and  retorted,  as  if  in  offense: 
"Not  at  all.  I've  seen  the  cherries  in  blossom  at 
the  end  of  October." 

"They  didn't  set  their  fruit,  I  suppose." 

"Well— no." 

"Ah!  Well,  I  saw  a  butterfly  up  here  in  the 
sheep-pasture  the  other  day.  I  could  have  put 
out  my  hand  and  caught  it.  It's  the  soft  weather 
that  brings  your  victorias  out  like  the  belated 
butterflies.  Wait  till  the  first  cold  snap,  and 
there  won't  be  a  single  victoria  or  butterfly  left." 

"Yes,"  the  elder  assented,  "we  butterflies  and 
victorias  belong  to  the  youth  of  the  year  and  the 

275 


THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

world.    And  the  sad  thing  is  that  we  won't  have 
our  palingenesis." 

"Why  not?"  the  younger  sage  demanded. 
"What  is  to  prevent  your  coming  back  in  two  or 
three  thousand  years?" 

"Well,  if  we  came  back  in  a  year  even,  we 
shouldn't  find  room,  for  one  reason.  Haven't 
you  noticed  how  full  to  bursting  the  place  seems? 
Every  street  is  as  packed  as  lower  Fifth  Avenue 
used  to  be  when  the  operatives  came  out  of  the 
big  shops  for  their  nooning.  The  city's  shell  hasn't 
been  enlarged  or  added  to,  but  the  life  in  it  has 
multiplied  past  its  utmost  capacity.  All  the 
hotels  and  houses  and  flats  are  packed.  The 
theaters,  wherever  the  plays  are  bad  enough, 
swarm  with  spectators.  Along  up  and  down  every 
side-streets  the  motors  stand  in  rows,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  avenues  are  so  dense  with  them 
that  you  are  killed  at  every  crossing.  There  has 
been  no  building  to  speak  of  during  the  summer, 
but  unless  New  York  is  overbuilt  next  year  we 
must  appeal  to  Chicago  to  come  and  help  hold  it. 
But  I've  an  idea  that  the  victorias  are  remaining 
to  stay;  if  some  sort  of  mechanical  horse  could 
be  substituted  for  the  poor  old  animals  that  re 
mind  me  of  my  mortality,  I  should  be  sure  of  it. 
Every  now  and  then  I  get  an  impression  of  per 
manence  in  the  things  of  the  Park.  As  long  as  the 

276 


THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

peanut-men  and  the  swan-boats  are  with  us  I 
sha'n't  quite  despair.  And  the  other  night  I  was 
moved  almost  to  tears  by  the  sight  of  a  four-in- 
hand  tooling  softly  down  the  Fifth  Avenue  drive. 
There  it  was,  like  some  vehicular  phantom,  but 
how,  whence,  when?  It  came,  as  if  out  of  the 
early  eighteen-nineties ;  two  middle-aged  grooms, 
with  their  arms  folded,  sat  on  the  rumble  (if  it's 
the  rumble),  but  of  all  the  young  people  who  ought 
to  have  flowered  over  the  top  none  was  left  but 
the  lady  beside  the  gentleman-driver  on  the  box. 
I've  tried  every  evening  since  for  that  four-in-hand, 
but  I  haven't  seen  it,  and  I've  decided  it  wasn't  a 
vehicular  phantom,  but  a  mere  dream  of  the  past." 

"Four-horse  dream,"  the  younger  sage  com 
mented,  as  if  musing  aloud. 

The  elder  did  not  seem  quite  pleased.  "A 
joke?"  he  challenged. 

"Not  necessarily.  I  suppose  I  was  the  helpless 
prey  of  the  rhyme." 

"I  didn't  know  you  were  a  poet." 

"I'm  not,  always.  But  didn't  it  occur  to  you 
that  danger  for  danger  your  four-in-hand  was 
more  dangerous  than  an  automobile  to  the  passing 
human  creature?" 

"It  might  have  been  if  it  had  been  multiplied 
by  ten  thousand.  But  there  was  only  one  of  it, 
and  it  wasn't  going  twenty  miles  an  hour." 

277 


THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

" That's  true,"  the  younger  sage  assented. 
"But  there  was  always  a  fearful  hazard  in  horses 
when  we  had  them.  We  supposed  they  were 
tamed,  but,  after  all,  they  were  only  trained 
animals,  like  Hagenback's." 

"And  what  is  a  chauffeur?" 

"Ah,  you  have  me  there!"  the  younger  said, 
and  he  laughed  generously.  "Or  you  would  have 
if  I  hadn't  noticed  something  like  amelioration  in 
the  chauffeurs.  At  any  rate,  the  taxis  are  cheap 
er  than  they  were,  and  I  suppose  something  will 
be  done  about  the  street  traffic  some  time.  They're 
talking  now  about  subway  crossings.  But  I 
should  prefer  overhead  foot-bridges  at  all  the 
corners,  crossing  one  another  diagonally.  They 
would  look  like  triumphal  arches,  and  would 
serve  the  purpose  of  any  future  Dewey  victory 
if  we  should  happen  to  have  another  hero  to  win 


one." 


"Well,  we  must  hope  for  the  best.  I  rather 
like  the  notion  of  the  diagonal  foot-bridges.  But 
why  not  Rows  along  the  second  stories  as  they 
have  them  in  Chester?  I  should  be  pretty  sure 
of  always  getting  home  alive  if  we  had  them. 
Now  if  I'm  not  telephoned  for  at  a  hospital  be 
fore  I'm  restored  to  consciousness,  I  think  myself 
pretty  lucky.  And  yet  it  seems  but  yesterday, 
as  the  people  used  to  say  in  the  plays,  since  I  had 

278 


THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

a  pride  in  counting  the  automobiles  as  I  walked 
up  the  Avenue.  Once  I  got  as  high  as  twenty 
before  I  reached  Fifty-ninth  Street.  Now  I 
couldn't  count  as  many  horse  vehicles." 

The  elder  sage  mocked  himself  in  a  feeble 
laugh,  but  the  younger  tried  to  be  serious.  "We 
don't  realize  the  absolute  change.  Our  streets 
are  not  streets  any  more;  they  are  railroad  tracks 
with  locomotives  let  loose  on  them,  and  no  signs 
up  to  warn  people  at  the  crossings.  It's  pathetic 
to  see  the  foot-passengers  saving  themselves,  es 
pecially  the  poor,  pretty,  high-heeled  women, 
looking  this  way  and  that  in  their  fright,  and  then 
tottering  over  as  fast  as  they  can  totter." 

"Well,  I  should  have  said  it  was  outrageous, 
humiliating,  insulting,  once,  but  I  don't  any  more; 
it  would  be  no  use." 

"No;  and  so  much  depends  upon  the  point  of 
view.  When  I'm  on  foot  I  feel  all  my  rights  in 
vaded,  but  when  I'm  in  a  taxi  it  amuses  me  to  see 
the  women  escaping ;  and  I  boil  with  rage  in  being 
halted  at  every  other  corner  by  the  policeman  with 
his  new-fangled  semaphore,  and  it's  "Go'1  and 
"Stop"  in  red  and  blue,  and  my  taxi-clock  going 
round  all  the  time  and  getting  me  in  for  a  dollar 
when  I  thought  I  should  keep  within  seventy 
cents.  Then  I  feel  that  pedestrians  of  every  age 
and  sex  ought  to  be  killed." 

279 


THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

"Yes,  there's  something  always  in  the  point  of 
view;  and  there's  some  comfort  when  you're 
stopped  in  your  taxi  to  feel  that  they  often  do  get 
killed." 

The  sages  laughed  together,  and  the  younger 
said:  "I  suppose  when  we  get  aeroplanes  in  com 
mon  use,  there'll  be  annoying  traffic  regulations, 
and  policemen  anchored  out  at  intervals  in  the 
central  blue  to  enforce  them.  After  all — " 

What  he  was  going  to  add  in  amplification  can 
not  be  known,  for  a  girlish  voice,  trying  to  sharpen 
itself  from  its  native  sweetness  to  a  conscientious 
severity,  called  to  them  as  its  owner  swiftly  ad 
vanced  upon  the  elder  sage:  "Now,  see  here, 
grandfather!  This  won't  do  at  all.  You  prom 
ised  not  to  leave  that  bench  by  the  Indian  Hunter, 
and  here  you  are  away  down  by  the  Falconer,  and 
we've  been  looking  everywhere  for  you.  It's  too 
bad!  I  shall  be  afraid  to  trust  you  at  all  after 
this.  Why,  it's  horrid  of  you,  grandfather!  You 
might  have  got  killed  crossing  the  drive.*' 

The  grandfather  looked  up  and  verified  the 
situation,  which  seemed  to  include  a  young  man, 
tall  and  beautiful,  but  neither  so  handsome  nor 
so  many  heads  high  as  the  young  men  in  the  ad 
vertisements  of  ready-to-wear  clothing,  who  smiled 
down  on  the  young  girl  as  if  he  had  arrived  with 
her,  and  were  finding  an  amusement  in  her  severity 

280 


THE  ESCAPADE  OF  A  GRANDFATHER 

which  he  might  not,  later.  She  was,  in  fact,  very 
pretty,  and  her  skirt  flared  in  the  fashion  of  the 
last  moment,  as  she  stooped  threateningly  yet 
fondly  over  her  grandfather. 

The  younger  sage  silently  and  somewhat  guiltily 
escaped  from  the  tumult  of  emotion  which  ignored 
him,  and  shuffled  slowly  down  the  path.  The 
other  finally  gave  an  "Oh!"  of  recognition,  and 
then  said,  for  all  explanation  and  excuse,  "I  didn't 
know  what  had  become  of  you,"  and  then  they 
all  laughed. 


SELF-SACRIFICE:  A  FARCE- 
TRAGEDY 


XVIII 
SELF-SACRIFICE:  A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 


M 


MISS  ISOBEL  RAMSEY  AND   MISS   ESTHER  GARNETT 

riSS  RAMSEY:  "And  they  were  really  un 
derstood  to  be  engaged?"  Miss  Ramsey  is  a 
dark-eyed,  dark-haired  girl  of  nearly  the  length 
of  two  lady's  umbrellas  and  the  bulk  of  one  closely 
folded  in  its  sheath.  She  stands  with  her  elbow 
supported  on  the  corner  of  the  mantel,  her  temple 
resting  on  the  knuckle  of  a  thin,  nervous  hand, 
in  an  effect  of  thoughtful  absent-mindedness. 
Miss  Garnett,  more  or  less  Merovingian  in  a  cos 
tume  that  lends  itself  somewhat  reluctantly  to  a 
low,  thick  figure,  is  apparently  poising  for  depar 
ture,  as  she  stands  before  the  chair  from  which 
she  has  risen  beside  Miss  Ramsey's  tea-table  and 
looks  earnestly  up  into  Miss  Ramsey's  absent 
face.  Both  are  very  young,  but  aim  at  being 
much  older  than  they  are,  with  occasional  lapses 
into  extreme  girlhood. 

285 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Miss  Garnett:  "Yes,  distinctly.  I  knew  you 
couldn't  know,  and  I  thought  you  ought  to."  She 
speaks  in  a  deep  conviction-bearing  and  convic 
tion-carrying  voice.  "If  he  has  been  coming  here 
so  much." 

Miss  Ramsey,  with  what  seems  temperamental 
abruptness:  "Sit  down.  One  can  always  think 
better  sitting  down."  She  catches  a  chair  under 
her  with  a  deft  movement  of  her  heel,  and  Miss 
Garnett  sinks  provisionally  into  her  seat.  "And 
I  think  it  needs  thought,  don't  you?" 

Miss  Garnett:  ' ' That  is  what  I  expected  of  you. ' ' 

Miss  Ramsey:  "And  have  some  more  tea. 
There  is  nothing  like  fresh  tea  for  clearing  the 
brain,  and  we  certainly  need  clear  brains  for  this." 
She  pushes  a  button  in  the  wall  beside  her,  and 
is  silent  till  the  maid  appears.  "More  tea,  Nora." 
She  is  silent  again  while  the  maid  reappears  with 
the  tea  and  disappears.  ' '  I  don't  know  that  he  has 
been  coming  here  so  very  much.  But  he  has  no 
right  to  be  coming  at  all,  if  he  is  engaged.  That 
is,  inthatwa^." 

Miss  Garnett:  "No.  Not  unless — he  wishes  he 
wasn't." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "That  would  give  him  less  than 
no  right." 

Miss  Garnett:  "That  is  true.  I  didn't  think  of 
it  in  that  light." 

286 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A    FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Miss  Ramsey:  ''I'm  trying  to  decide  what  I 
ought  to  do  if  he  does  want  to  get  off.  She  said 
herself  that  they  were  engaged?" 

MissGarnett:  "As  much  as  that.  Conny  under 
stood  her  to  say  so.  And  Conny  never  makes  a 
mistake  in  what  people  say.  Emily  didn't  say 
whom  she  was  engaged  to,  but  Conny  felt  that 
that  was  to  come  later,  and  she  did  not  quite  feel 
like  asking,  don't  you  know." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Of  course.  And  how  came  she 
to  decide  that  it  was  Mr.  Ashley?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "Simply  by  putting  two  and  two 
together.  They  two  were  together  the  whole  time 
last  summer." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "I  see.  Then  there  is  only  one 
thing  for  me  to  do." 

Miss  Garnett,  admiringly:  "I  knew  you  would 
say  that." 

Miss  Ramsey,  dreamily:  "The  question  is  what 
the  thing  is." 

MissGarnett:  "Yes!" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "That  is  what  I  wish  to  think 
over.  Chocolates?"  She  offers  a  box,  catching  it 
with  her  left  hand  from  the  mantel  at  her  shoulder, 
without  rising. 

Miss  Garnett:  "Thank  you;  do  you  think  they 
go  well  with  tea?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "They  go  well  with  anything. 
287 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE -TRAGEDY 

But  we  mustn't  allow  our  minds  to  be  distracted. 
The  case  is  simply  this:  If  Mr.  Ashley  is  engaged 
to  Emily  Fray,  he  has  no  right  to  go  round  calling 
on  other  girls — well,  as  if  he  wasn't — and  he  has 
been  calling  here  a  great  deal.  That  is  perfectly 
evident.  He  must  be  made  to  feel  that  girls  are 
not  to  be  trifled  with — that  they  are  not  mere 
toys." 

Miss  Garnett:  "How  splendidly  you  do  reason! 
And  he  ought  to  understand  that  Emily  has  a 
right-" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Oh,  I  don't  know  that  I  care 
about  her — or  not  primarily.  Or  do  you  say 
primarily?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "I  never  know.  I  only  use  it  in 
writing." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "It's  a  clumsy  word;  I  don't 
know  that  I  shall.  But  what  I  mean  is  that  I 
must  act  from  a  general  principle,  and  that  prin 
ciple  is  that  when  a  man  is  engaged,  it  doesn't 
matter  whether  the  girl  has  thrown  herself  at  him, 
or  not — " 

Miss  Garnett:  "She  certainly  did,  from  what 
Conny  says." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "He  must  be  shown  that  other 
girls  won't  tolerate  his  behaving  as  if  he  were  not 
engaged.  It  is  wrong." 

Miss  Garnett:  "We  must  stand  together." 
288 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Yes.  Though  I  don't  infer  that 
he  has  been  attentive  to  other  girls  generally." 

Miss  Garnett:  "No.  I  meant  that  if  he  has 
been  coming  here  so  much,  you  want  to  prevent 
his  trifling  with  others." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Something  like  that.  But  it 
ought  to  be  more  definite.  He  ought  to  realize 
that  if  another  girl  cared  for  him,  it  would  be 
cruel  to  her,  paying  her  attentions,  when  he  was 
engaged  to  some  one  else." 

Miss  Garnett:  "And  cruel  to  the  girl  he  is  en 
gaged  to." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Yes."  She  speaks  coldly,  vague 
ly.  "But  that  is  the  personal  ground,  and  I  wish 
to  avoid  that.  I  wish  to  deal  with  him  purely  in 
the  abstract." 

Miss  Garnett:  "  Yes,  I  understand  that.  And 
at  the  same  time  you  wish  to  punish  him.  He 
ought  to  be  made  to  feel  it  all  the  more  because 
he  is  so  severe  himself." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Severe?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "Not  tolerating  anything  that's 
the  least  out  of  the  way  in  other  people.  Taking 
you  up  about  your  ideas  and  showing  where  you're 
wrong,  or  even  silly.  Spiritually  snubbing,  Conny 
calls  it." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Oh,  I  like  that  in  him.  It's  so 
invigorating.  It  braces  up  all  your  good  resolu- 
19  289 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

tions.  It  makes  you  ashamed;  and  shame  is 
sanative." 

Miss  Garnett:  "That's  just  what  I  told  Conny, 
or  the  same  thing.  Do  you  think  another  one 
would  hurt  me?  I  will  risk  it,  anyway."  She 
takes  another  chocolate  from  the  box.  "Go  on." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Oh,  I  was  just  wishing  that  I 
had  been  out  longer,  and  had  a  little  more  experi 
ence  of  men.  Then  I  should  know  how  to  act. 
How  do  you  suppose  people  do,  generally?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "Why,  you  know,  if  they  find  a 
man  in  love  with  them,  after  he's  engaged  to  an 
other  girl,  they  make  him  go  back  to  her,  it  doesn't 
matter  whether  they're  in  love  with  him  them 
selves  or  not." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "I'm  not  in  love  with  Mr.  Ash 
ley,  please." 

Miss  Garnett:  "No;  I'm  supposing  an  extreme 
case." 

Miss  Ramsey,  after  a  moment  of  silent  thought : 
"Did  you  ever  hear  of  anybody  doing  it?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "Not  just  in  our  set.  But  I 
know  it's  done  continually." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "It  seems  to  me  as  if  I  had  read 
something  of  the  kind." 

Miss  Garnett:  "Oh  yes,  the  books  are  full  of  it. 
Are  those  mallows?  They  might  carry  off  the 
effects  of  the  chocolates."  Miss  Ramsey  passes 

290 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY  4 

her  the  box  of  marshmallows  which  she  has  bent 
over  the  table  to  look  at. 

Miss  Ramsey:  "And  of  course  they  couldn't  get 
into  the  books  if  they  hadn't  really  happened. 
I  wish  I  could  think  of  a  case  in  point." 

Miss  Garnett:  "Why,  there  was  Peg  Woffing- 
ton— " 

Miss  Ramsey,   with  displeasure:  "She  was  an 
actress  of  some  sort,  wasn't  she?" 

Miss  Garnett,  with  meritorious  candor:  "Yes, 
she  was.  But  she  was  a  very  good  actress." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "What  did  she  do?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "Well,  it's  a  long  time  since  I 
read  it;  and  it's  rather  old-fashioned  now.  But 
there  was  a  countryman  of  some  sort,  I  remember, 
who  came  away  from  his  wife,  and  fell  in  love  with 
Peg  Woffington,  and  then  the  wife  follows  him 
up  to  London,  and  begs  her  to  give  him  back  to 
her,  and  she  does  it.  There's  something  about  a 
portrait  of  Peg — I  don't  remember  exactly;  she 
puts  her  face  through  and  cries  when  the  wife 
talks  to  the  picture.  The  wife  thinks  it  is  a  real 
picture,  and  she  is  kind  of  soliloquizing,  and  asking 
Peg  to  give  her  husband  back  to  her;  and  Peg 
does,  in  the  end.  That  part  is  beautiful.  They 
become  the  greatest  friends." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Rather  silly,  I  should  say." 

Miss  Garnett:  "Yes,  it  is  rather  silly,  but  I 
291 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

suppose  the  author  thought  she  had  to  do  some 
thing." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "And  disgusting.  A  married  man, 
that  way!  I  don't  see  any  comparison  with  Mr. 
Ashley." 

Miss  Garnett:  "No,  there  really  isn't  any. 
Emily  has  never  asked  you  to  give  him  up.  And 
besides,  Peg  Woffington  really  liked  him  a  little — 
loved  him,  in  fact." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "And  I  don't  like  Mr.  Ashley  at 
all.  Of  course  I  respect  him — and  I  admire  his 
intellect;  there's  no  question  about  his  being 
handsome;  but  I  have  never  thought  of  him  for 
a  moment  in  any  other  way;  and  now  I  can't 
even  respect  him." 

Miss  Garnett:  " Nobody  could.  I'm  sure  Emily 
would  be  welcome  to  him  as  far  as  /  was  con 
cerned.  But  he  has  never  been  about  with  me 
so  much  as  he  has  with  you,  and  I  don't  wonder 
you  feel  indignant." 

Miss  Ramsey,  coldly:  "I  don't  feel  indignant. 
I  wish  to  be  just." 

Miss  Garnett:  "Yes,  that  is  what  I  mean.  And 
poor  Emily  is  so  uninteresting!  In  the  play  that 
Kentucky  Summers  does,  she  is  perfectly  fas 
cinating  at  first,  and  you  can  see  why  the  poor 
girl's  fianc£  should  be  so  taken  with  her.  But 
I'm  sure  no  one  could  say  you  had  ever  given  Mr. 

292 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Ashley  the  least  encouragement.  It  would  be 
pure  justice  on  your  part.  I  think  you  are  grand ! 
I  shall  always  be  proud  of  knowing  what  you  were 
going  to  do." 

Miss  Ramsey,  after  some  moments  of  snubbing 
intention:  "I  don't  know  what  I  am  going  to 
do  myself,  yet.  Or  how.  What  was  that  play? 
I  never  heard  of  it." 

Miss  Garnett:  "I  don't  remember  distinctly,  but 
it  was  about  a  young  man  who  falls  in  love  with 
her,  when  he's  engaged  to  another  girl,  and  she 
determines,  as  soon  as  she  finds  it  out,  to  disgust 
him,  so  that  he  will  go  back  to  the  other  girl, 
don't  you  know." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "That  sounds  rather  more  prac 
tical  than  the  Peg  Woffington  plan.  What  does 
she  do?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "Nothing  you'd  like  to  do." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "I'd  like  to  do  something  in  such 
a  cause.  What  does  she  do?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "Oh,  when  he  is  calling  on  her, 
Kentucky  Summers  pretends  to  fly  into  a  rage  with 
her  sister,  and  she  pulls  her  hair  down,  and  slams 
everything  round  the  room,  and  scolds,  and  drinks 
champagne,  and  wants  him  to  drink  with  her,  and 
I  don't  know  what  all.  The  upshot  is  that  he  is 
only  too  glad  to  get  away." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "It's  rather  loathsome,  isn't  it?" 
293 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Miss  Garnett:  "It  is  rather  loathsome.  But  it 
was  in  a  good  cause,  and  I  suppose  it  was  what  an 
actress  would  think  of." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "An  actress?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "I  forgot.  The  heroine  is  a  dis 
tinguished  actress,  you  know,  and  Kentucky  could 
play  that  sort  of  part  to  perfection.  But  I  don't 
think  a  lady  would  like  to  cut  up,  much,  in  the 
best  cause." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Cut  up?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "She  certainly  frisks  about  the 
room  a  good  deal.  How  delicious  these  mallows 
are!  Have  you  ever  tried  toasting  them?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "At  school.  There  seems  an 
idea  in  it.  And  the  hero  isn't  married.  I  don't 
like  the  notion  of  a  married  man." 

Miss  Garnett:  "Oh,  I'm  quite  sure  he  isn't  mar 
ried.  He's  merely  engaged.  That  makes  the 
whole  difference  from  the  Peg  Woffington  story. 
And  there's  no  portrait,  I'm  confident,  so  that 
you  wouldn't  have  to  do  that  part." 

Miss  Ramsey,  haughtily:  "I  don't  propose  to  do 
any  part,  if  the  affair  can't  be  arranged  without 
some  such  mountebank  business!" 

Miss  Garnett:  "You  can  manage  it,  if  anybody 
can.  You  have  so  much  dignity  that  you  could 
awe  him  into  doing  his  duty  by  a  single  glance. 
I  wouldn't  be  in  his  place!" 

294 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Miss  Ramsey:  "I  shall  not  give  him  a  glance. 
I  shall  not  see  him  when  he  comes.  That  will  be 
simpler  still."  To  Nora,  at  the  door:  "What  is 
it,  Nora?" 

ii 

NORA,  MISS  RAMSEY,  MISS  GARNETT 

Nora:  "Mr.  Ashley,  Miss  Ramsey." 
Miss  Ramsey,  with  a  severity  not  meant  for 
Nora:  "Ask  him  to  sit  down  in  the  reception- 
room  a  moment." 
Nora:  "Yes,  Miss  Ramsey." 

in 

MISS   RAMSEY,    MISS    GARNETT 

Miss  Garnett,  rising  and  seizing  Miss  Ramsey's 
hands:  "Oh,  Isobel!  But  you  will  be  equal  to 
it!  Oh!  Oh!" 

Miss  Ramsey,  with  state:  "Why  are  you  going, 
Esther?  Sit  down." 

Miss  Garnett:  "If  I  only  could  stay!  If  I  could 
hide  under  the  sofa,  or  behind  the  screen!  Isn't 
it  wonderful — providential — his  coming  at  the  very 
instant?  Oh,  Isobel!"  She  clasps  her  friend  con 
vulsively,  and  after  a  moment's  resistance  Miss 
Ramsey  yields  to  her  emotion,  and  they  hide  their 

295 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

faces  in  each  other's  neck,  and  strangle  their 
hysteric  laughter.  They  try  to  regain  their  com 
posure,  and  then  abandon  the  effort  with  a  shud 
dering  delight  in  the  perfection  of  the  incident. 
"What  shall  you  do?  Shall  you  trust  to  inspira 
tion?  Shall  you  make  him  show  his  hand  first, 
and  then  act?  Or  shall  you  tell  him  at  once  that 
you  know  all,  and —  Or  no,  of  course  you  can't 
do  that.  He's  not  supposed  to  know  that  you 
know.  Oh,  I  can  imagine  the  freezing  hauteur 
that  you'll  receive  him  with,  and  the  icy  indiffer 
ence  you'll  let  him  understand  that  he  isn't  a 
persona  grata  with !  If  I  were  only  as  tall  as  you ! 
He  isn't  as  tall  himself,  and  you  can  tower  over 
him.  Don't  sit  down,  or  bend,  or  anything;  just 
stand  with  your  head  up,  and  glance  carelessly 
at  him  under  your  lashes  as  if  nobody  was  there! 
Then  it  will  gradually  dawn  upon  him  that  you 
know  everything,  and  he'll  simply  go  through  the 
floor."  They  take  some  ecstatic  turns  about  the 
room,  Miss  Ramsey  waltzing  as  gentleman. 
She  abruptly  frees  herself. 

Miss  Ramsey:  "No.  It  can't  be  as  tacit  as  all 
that.  There  must  be  something  explicit.  As  you 
say,  I  must  do  something  to  cure  him  of  his  fancy — 
his  perfidy — and  make  him  glad  to  go  back  to  her." 

Miss  Garnett:  "Yes!  Do  you  think  he  deserves 
it?" 

296 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Miss  Ramsey:  "I've  no  wish  to  punish  him." 
Miss  Garnett:  "How  noble  you  are!  I  don't 
wonder  he  adores  you.  /  should.  But  you  won't 
find  it  so  easy.  You  must  do  something  drastic. 
It  is  drastic,  isn't  it?  or  do  I  mean  static?  One 
of  those  things  when  you  simply  crush  a  person. 
But  now  I  must  go.  How  I  should  like  to  listen 
at  the  door !  We  must  kiss  each  other  very  quiet 
ly,  and  I  must  slip  out—  Oh,  you  dear!  How  I 
long  to  know  what  you'll  do!  But  it  will  be  per 
fect,  whatever  it  is.  You  always  did  do  perfect 
things."  They  knit  their  fingers  together  in 
parting.  "On  second  thoughts  I  won't  kiss  you. 
It  might  unman  you,  and  you  need  all  your 
strength.  Unman  isn't  the  word,  exactly,  but 
you  can't  say  ungirl,  can  you  ?  It  would  be  ridicu 
lous.  Though  girls  are  as  brave  as  men  when  it 
comes  to  duty.  Good-by,  dear!"  She  catches 
Miss  Ramsey  about  the  neck,  and  pressing  her 
lips  silently  to  her  cheek,  runs  out.  Miss  Ramsey 
rings  and  the  maid  appears. 

IV 
NORA,    MISS    RAMSEY 

Miss   Ramsey,    starting:  "Oh!     Is    that    you, 
Nora?     Of  course!    Nora!" 
Nora:  "Yes,  Miss  Ramsey." 
297 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Do  you  know  where  my  brother 
keeps  his  cigarettes?" 

Nora:  "Why,  in  his  room,  Miss  Ramsey;  you 
told  him  you  didn't  like  the  smell  here." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Yes,  yes.  I  forgot.  And  has 
he  got  any  cocktails?" 

Nora :  "  He's  got  the  whole  bottle  full  of  them  yet. ' ' 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Full  yet?" 

Nora:  "You  wouldn't  let  him  offer  them  to  the 
gentlemen  he  had  to  lunch,  last  week,  because 
you  said — " 

Miss  Ramsey:  "What  did  I  say?" 

Nora:  "They  were  vulgar." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "And  so  they  are.  And  so  much 
the  better!  Bring  the  cigarettes  and  the  bottle 
and  some  glasses  here,  Nora,  and  then  ask  Mr. 
Ashley  to  come."  She  walks  away  to  the  window, 
and  hurriedly  hums  a  musical  comedy  waltz,  not 
quite  in  tune,  as  from  not  remembering  exactly, 
and  after  Nora  has  tinkled  in  with  a  tray  of  glasses 
she  lights  a  cigarette  and  stands  puffing  it,  gasp 
ing  and  coughing  a  little,  as  Walter  Ashley  enters. 
"Oh,  Mr.  Ashley!  Sorry  to  make  you  wait." 

v 

MR.    ASHLEY,    MISS    RAMSEY 

Mr.  Ashley:  "The  time  has  seemed  long,  but  I 
could  have  waited  all  day.  I  couldn't  have  gone 

298 


SELF-SACRIFICE:     A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

without  seeing  you,  and  telling  you — "  He 
pauses,  as  if  bewildered  at  the  spectacle  of  Miss 
Ramsey's  resolute  practice  with  the  cigarette, 
which  she  now  takes  from  her  lips  and  waves  be 
fore  her  face  with  innocent  recklessness. 

Miss  Ramsey,  chokingly:  "Do  sit  down."  She 
drops  into  an  easy-chair  beside  the  tea-table,  and 
stretches  the  tips  of  her  feet  out  beyond  the  hem 
of  her  skirt  in  extremely  lady-like  abandon. 
"Have  a  cigarette."  She  reaches  the  box  to 
him. 

Ashley:  "Thank  you.  I  won't  smoke,  I  be 
lieve."  He  stands  frowning,  while  she  throws  her 
cigarette  into  a  teacup  and  lights  another. 

Miss  Ramsey:  "I  thought  everybody  smoked. 
Then  have  a  cocktail." 

Ashley:  "A  what?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "A  cocktail.  So  many  people 
like  them  with  their  tea,  instead  of  rum,  you 
know." 

Ashley:  "No,  I  didn't  know."  He  regards  her 
with  amaze,  rapidly  hardening  into  condemnation. 

Miss  Ramsey:  "I  hope  you  don't  object  to 
smoking.  Englishwomen  all  smoke." 

Ashley:  "I  think  I've  heard.  I  didn't  know 
that  American  ladies  did." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "They  don't,  all.  But  they 
will  when  they  find  how  nice  it  is." 

299 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Ashley:  "And  do  Englishwomen  all  drink  cock 
tails?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "They  will  when  they  find  how 
nice  it  is.  But  why  do  you  keep  standing?  Sit 
down,  if  it's  only  for  a  moment.  There  is  some 
thing  I  would  like  to  talk  with  you  about.  What 
were  you  saying  when  you  came  in?  I  didn't 
catch  it  quite." 

A  shley :  ' '  Nothing — now — ' ' 

Miss  Ramsey:  "And  I  can't  persuade  you  to 
have  a  cocktail?  I  believe  I'll  have  another  my 
self."  She  takes  up  the  bottle,  and  tries  several 
times  to  pour  from  it.  "I  do  believe  Nora's  for 
gotten  to  open  it!  That  is  a  good  joke  on  me. 
But  I  mustn't  let  her  know.  Do  you  happen  to 
have  a  pocket-corkscrew  with  you,  Mr.  Ashley?" 

Ashley:  "No—" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Well,  never  mind."  She  tosses 
her  cigarette  into  the  grate,  and  lights  another. 
"I  wonder  why  they  always  have  cynical  persons 
smoke,  on  the  stage?  I  don't  see  that  the  two 
things  necessarily  go  together,  but  it  does  give 
you  a  kind  of  thrill  when  they  strike  a  match, 
and  it  lights  up  their  faces  when  they  put  it 
to  the  cigarette.  You  know  something  good  and 
wicked  is  going  to  happen."  She  puffs  violently 
at  her  cigarette,  and  then  suddenly  flings  it 
away  and  starts  to  her  feet.  "Will  you — would 

300 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

you — open  the  window?"     She  collapses  into  her 
chair. 

Ashley,  springing  toward  her:  "Miss  Ramsey, 
are  you — you  are  ill!" 

Miss  Ramsey:  '  *  No,  no !  The  window !  A  little 
faint — it's  so  close —  There,  it's  all  right  now. 
Or  it  will  be — when — I've  had — another  cigarette." 
She  leans  forward  to  take  one;  Ashley  gravely 
watches  her,  but  says  nothing.  She  lights  her 
cigarette,  but,  without  smoking,  throws  it  away. 
"Go  on." 

Ashley:  "I  wasn't  saying  anything!" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Oh,  I  forgot.  And  I  don't 
know  what  we  were  talking  about  myself."  She 
falls  limply  back  into  her  chair  and  closes  her 
eyes. 

Ashley:  "  Sha'n't  I  ring  for  the  maid  ?  I'm 
afraid—" 

Miss  Ramsey,  imperiously:  "Not  at  all.  Not 
on  any  account."  Far  less  imperiously:  "You 
may  pour  me  a  cup  of  tea  if  you  like.  That  will 
make  me  well.  The  full  strength,  please."  She 
motions  away  the  hot-water  jug  with  which  he 
has  proposed  qualifying  the  cup  of  tea  which  he 
offers  her. 

Ashley:  "One  lump  or  two?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Only  one,  thank  you."  She 
takes  the  cup. 

301 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Ashley,  offering  the  milk:  "Cream?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "A  drop."  He  stands  anxiously 
beside  her  while  she  takes  a  long  draught  and 
then  gives  back  the  cup.  "That  was  perfect." 

Ashley:  "Another?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "No,  that  is  just  right.  Now 
go  on.  Or,  I  forgot.  You  were  not  going 
on.  Oh  dear!  How  much  better  I  feel.  There 
must  have  been  something  poisonous  in  those 
cigarettes." 

Ashley:  "Yes,  there  was  tobacco." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Oh,  do  you  think  it  was  the 
tobacco?  Do  throw  the  whole  box  into  the  fire! 
I  shall  tell  Bob  never  to  get  cigarettes  with 
tobacco  in  them  after  this.  Won't  you  have  one 
of  the  chocolates?  Or  a  mallow?  I  feel  as  if  I 
should  never  want  to  eat  anything  again.  Where 
was  I?"  She  rests  her  cheek  against  the  side  of 
her  chair  cushion,  and  speaks  with  closed  eyes,  in 
a  weak  murmur.  Mr.  Ashley  watches  her  at 
first  with  anxiety,  then  with  a  gradual  change  of 
countenance  until  a  gleam  of  intelligence  steals 
into  his  look  of  compassion. 

Ashley:  "You  asked  me  to  throw  the  cigarettes 
into  the  fire.  But  I  want  you  to  let  me  keep 
them." 

Miss  Ramsey,  with  wide-flung  eyes:  "You? 
You  said  you  wouldn't  smoke." 

302 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Ashley,  laughing:  "May  I  change  my  mind? 
One  talks  better."  He  lights  a  cigarette.  "And, 
Miss  Ramsey,  I  believe  I  will  have  a  cocktail, 
after  all." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Mr.  Ashley!" 

Ashley,  without  noting  her  protest :  "  I  had  for 
gotten  that  I  had  a  corkscrew  in  my  pocket-knife. 
Don't  trouble  yourself  to  ring  for  one."  He  pro 
duces  the  knife  and  opens  the  bottle;  then,  as 
Miss  Ramsey  rises  and  stands  aghast,  he  pours 
out  a  glass  and  offers  it  to  her,  with  mock  devo 
tion.  As  she  shakes  her  head  and  recoils:  "Oh! 
I  thought  you  liked  cocktails.  They  are  very 
good  after  cigarettes — very  reviving.  But  if  you 
won't — "  He  tosses  off  the  cocktail  and  sets 
down  the  glass,  smacking  his  lips.  "Tell  your 
brother  I  commend  his  taste — in  cocktails  and" 
—puffing  his  cigarette — "tobacco.  Poison  for 
poison,  let  me  offer  you  one  of  my  cigarettes. 
They're  milder  than  these."  He  puts  his  hand 
to  his  breast  pocket. 

Miss  Ramsey,  with  nervous  shrinking:  "No— 

Ashley:  "It's  just  as  well.  I  find  that  I  hadn't 
brought  mine  with  me."  After  a  moment:  "You 
are  so  unconventional,  so  fearless,  that  I  should 
like  your  notion  of  the  problem  in  a  book  I've 
just  been  reading.  Why  should  the  mere  fact 
that  a  man  is  married  to  one  woman  prevent  his 

303 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

being  in  love  with  another,  or  half  a  dozen  others; 
or  vice  versa?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Mr.  Ashley,  do  you  wish  to  in 
sult  me?" 

Ashley:  "Dear  me,  no!  But  put  the  case  a 
little  differently.  Suppose  a  couple  are  merely 
engaged.  Does  that  fact  imply  that  neither  has 
a  right  to  a  change  of  mind,  or  to  be  fancy  free 
to  make  another  choice?" 

Miss  Ramsey,  indignantly:  "Yes,  it  does.  They 
are  as  sacredly  bound  to  each  other  as  if  they 
were  married,  and  if  they  are  false  to  each  other 
the  girl  is  a  wretch,  and  the  man  is  a  villain !  And 
if  you  think  anything  I  have  said  can  excuse  you 
for  breaking  your  engagement,  or  that  I  don't 
consider  you  the  wickedest  person  in  the  world, 
and  the  most  barefaced  hypocrite,  and — and — I 
don't  know  what — you  are  very  much  mistaken." 

Ashley:  "What  in  the  world  are  you  talking 
about?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "  I  am  talking  about  you  and 
your  shameless  perfidy." 

Ashley:  "My  shameless  perf —  I  don't  under 
stand!  I  came  here  to  tell  you  that  I  love  you — " 

Miss  Ramsey:  "How  dare  you!  To  speak  to 
me  of  that,  when —  Or  perhaps  you  have  broken 
with  her,  and  think  you  are  free  to  hoodwink  some 
other  poor  creature.  But  you  will  find  that  you 

304 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

have  chosen  the  wrong  person.  And  it's  no  ex 
cuse  for  you  her  being  a  little — a  little— not  so 
bright  as  some  girls,  and  not  so  good-looking. 
Oh,  it's  enough  to  make  any  girl  loathe  her  own 
looks!  You  mustn't  suppose  you  can  come  here 
red-handed — yes,  it's  the  same  as  a  murder,  and 
any  true  girl  would  say  so — and  tell  me  you  care 
for  me.  No,  Walter  Ashley,  I  haven't  fallen  so 
low  as  that,  though  I  have  the  disgrace  of  your 
acquaintance.  And  I  hope — I  hope — if  you  don't 
like  my  smoking,  and  offering  you  cocktails,  and 
talking  the  way  I  have,  it  will  be  a  lesson  to  you. 
And  yes! — I  will  say  it!  If  it  will  add  to  your 
misery  to  know  that  I  did  respect  you  very  much, 
and  thought  everything — very  highly — of  you, 
and  might  have  answered  you  very  differently 
before,  when  you  were  free  to  tell  me  that — now  I 
have  nothing  but  the  utmost  abhorrence — and — 
disapproval  of  you.  And — and —  Oh,  I  don't 
see  how  you  can  be  so  hateful!"  She  hides  her 
face  in  her  hands  and  rushes  from  the  room,  over 
turning  several  chairs  in  her  course  toward  the 
door.  Ashley  remains  staring  after  her,  while  a 
succession  of  impetuous  rings  make  themselves 
heard  from  the  street  door.  There  is  a  sound  of 
opening  it,  and  then  a  flutter  of  skirts  and  anxi 
eties,  and  Miss  Garnett  comes  running  into  the 
room. 

20  305 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

VI 
MISS   GARNETT,    MR.    ASHLEY 

Miss  Garnett,  to  the  maid  hovering  in  the  door 
way:  "Yes,  I  must  have  left  it  here,  for  I  never 
missed  it  till  I  went  to  pay  my  fare  in  the  motor- 
bus,  and  tried  to  think  whether  I  had  the  exact 
dime,  and  if  I  hadn't  whether  the  conductor  would 
change  a  five-dollar  bill  or  not,  and  then  it  rushed 
into  my  mind  that  I  had  left  my  purse  somewhere, 
and  I  knew  I  hadn't  been  anywhere  else."  She 
runs  from  the  mantel  to  the  writing-desk  in  the 
corner,  and  then  to  the  sofa,  where,  peering  under 
the  tea-table,  she  finds  her  purse  on  the  shelf. 
"Oh,  here  it  is,  Nora,  just  where  I  put  it  when 
we  began  to  talk,  and  I  must  have  gone  out  and 
left  it.  I—  She  starts  with  a  little  shriek,  in 
encountering  Ashley.  "Oh,  Mr.  Ashley!  What 
a  fright  you  gave  me!  I  was  just  looking  for  my 
purse  that  I  missed  when  I  went  to  pay  my  fare 
in  the  motor-bus,  and  was  wondering  whether  I 
had  the  exact  dime,  or  the  conductor  could  change 
a  five-dollar  bill,  and—  She  discovers,  or  af 
fects  to  discover,  something  strange  in  his  man 
ner.  "What— what  is  the  matter,  Mr.  Ashley?" 

Ashley:  "I  shall  be  glad  to  have  you  tell  me — 
or  any  one." 

306 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Miss  Garnett:  "I  don't  understand.  Has  Iso- 
bel— " 

Ashley:  "Miss  Garnett,  did  you  know  I  was 
engaged?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "Why,  yes;  I  was  just  going  to 
congrat — " 

Ashley:  "Well,  don't,  unless  you  can  tell  me 
whom  I  am  engaged  to." 

Miss  Garnett:  "Why,  aren't  you  engaged  to 
Emily  Fray?" 

Ashley:  "Not  the  least  in  the  world." 

Miss  Garnett,  in  despair:  "Then  what  have  I 
done?  Oh,  what  a  fatal,  fatal  scrape!"  With  a 
ray  of  returning  hope:  "But  she  told  me  herself 
that  she  was  engaged !  And  you  were  together  so 
much,  last  summer !"  Desperately :  ' '  Then  if  she 
isn't  engaged  to  you,  whom  is  she  engaged  to?" 

Ashley:  "On  general  principles,  I  shouldn't 
know,  but  in  this  particular  instance  I  happen 
to  know  that  she  is  engaged  to  Owen  Brooks. 
They  were  a  great  deal  more  together  last  sum 
mer." 

Miss  Garnett,  with  conviction:  "So  they  were!" 
With  returning  doubt:  "But  why  didn't  she  say 
so?" 

Ashley:  "I  can't  tell  you;  she  may  have  had 
her  reasons,  or  she  may  not.  Can  you  possibly 
tell  me,  in  return  for  my  ignorance,  why  the  fact 

307 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

of  her  engagement  should  involve  me  in  the 
strange  way  it  seems  to  have  done  with  Miss 
Ramsey?" 

Miss  Garnett,  with  a  burst  of  involuntary  can 
dor:  "Why,  I  did  that.  Or,  no!  What's  she 
been  doing?" 

Ashley:  "Really,  Miss  Garnett—" 

Miss  Garnett:  "How  can  I  tell  you  anything,  if 
you  don't  tell  me  everything?  You  wouldn't  wish 
me  to  betray  confidence?" 

Ashley:  "No,  certainly  not.  What  was  the 
confidence?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "Well—  But  I  shall  have  to 
know  first  what  she's  been  doing.  You  must  see 
that  yourself,  Mr.  Ashley."  He  is  silent.  "Has 
she — has  Isobel — been  behaving — well,  out  of 
character?" 

Ashley:  "Very  much  indeed." 

Miss  Garnett:  "I  expected  she  would."  She 
fetches  a  thoughtful  sigh,  and  for  her  greater 
emotional  convenience  she  sinks  into  an  easy- 
chair  and  leans  forward.  "Oh  dear!  It  is  a 
scrape."  Suddenly  and  imperatively:  "Tell  me 
exactly  what  she  did,  if  you  hope  for  any  help 
whatever." 

Ashley:  "Why,  she  offered  me  a  cocktail — " 

Miss  Garnett:  "Oh,  how  good!  I  didn't  sup 
pose  she  would  dare!  Well?" 

308 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Ashley:  "And  she  smoked  cigarettes — " 

Miss  Garnett:  "How  perfectly  divine!  And 
what  else?" 

Ashley,  coldly:  "May  I  ask  why  you  admire 
Miss  Ramsey's  behaving  out  of  character  so  much? 
I  think  the  smoking  made  her  rather  faint,  and — " 

Miss  Garnett:  "She  would  have  let  it  kill  her! 
Never  tell  me  that  girls  have  no  moral  courage!" 

Ashley:  "But  what — what  was  the  meaning  of 
it  all?" 

Miss  Garnett,  thoughtfully:  "I  suppose  if  I  got 
her  in  for  it,  I  ought  to  get  her  out,  even  if  I  be 
tray  confidence." 

Ashley:  "  It  depends  upon  the  confidence.  What 
is  it?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "Why —  But  you're  sure  it's  my 
duty?" 

Ashley:  "If  you  care  what  I  think  of  her — " 

Miss  Garnett:  "Oh,  Mr.  Ashley,  you  mustn't 
think  it  strange  of  Isobel,  on  my  bended  knees 
you  mustn't!  Why,  don't  you  see?  She  was  just 
doing  it  to  disgust  you!" 

Ashley:  "Disgust  me?" 

Miss  Garnett:  "Yes,  and  drive  you  back  to 
Emily  Fray." 

Ashley:  "Drive  me  ba — " 

Miss  Garnett:  "If  she  thought  you  were  en 
gaged  to  Emily,  when  you  were  coming  here  all 

309 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

the  time,  and  she  wasn't  quite  sure  that  she  hated 
to  have  you,  don't  you  see  it  would  be  her  duty 
to  sacrifice  herself,  and—  Oh,  I  suppose  she's 
heard  everything  up  there,  and — "  She  catches 
herself  up  and  runs  out  of  the  room,  leaving 
Ashley  to  await  the  retarded  descent  of  skirts 
which  he  hears  on  the  stairs  after  the  crash  of 
the  street  door  has  announced  Miss  Garnett's  es 
cape.  He  stands  with  his  back  to  the  mantel, 
and  faces  Miss  Ramsey  as  she  enters  the  room. 

VII 

MISS    RAMSEY,    ASHLEY 

Miss  Ramsey,  with  the  effect  of  cold  surprise: 
"Mr.  Ashley?  I  thought  I  heard —  Wasn't  Miss 
Garnett— " 

Ashley:  "She  was.  Did  you  think  it  was  the 
street  door  closing  on  me?19 

Miss  Ramsey:  "How  should  I  know?"  Then, 
courageously:  "No,  I  didn't  think  it  was.  Why 
do  you  ask?"  She  moves  uneasily  about  the 
room,  with  an  air  of  studied  inattention. 

Ashley:  "Because  if  you  did,  I  can  put  you  in 
the  right,  though  I  can't  restore  Miss  Garnett's 
presence  by  my  absence." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "You're  rather — enigmatical." 
A  ring  is  heard;  the  maid  pauses  at  the  doorway. 

310 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

"I'm  not  at  home,  Nora."  To  Mr.  Ashley:  "It 
seems  to  be  very  close — " 

Ashley:  "It's  my  having  been  smoking." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Your  having?"  She  goes  to 
the  window  and  tries  to  lift  it. 

Ashley:  "Let  me.11  He  follows  her  to  the  win 
dow,  where  he  stands  beside  her. 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Now,  she's  seen  me!  And  you 
here  with  me.  Of  course — " 

Ashley:  "I  shouldn't  mind.  But  I'm  so  sorry 
if — and  I  will  go." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "You  can't  go  now — till  she's 
round  the  corner.  She'll  keep  looking  back,  and 
she'll  think  I  made  you." 

Ashley:  "But  haven't  you?  Aren't  you  send 
ing  me  back  to  Miss  Fray  to  tell  her  that  I  must 
keep  my  engagement,  though  I  care  nothing  for 
her,  and  care  all  the  world  for  you?  Isn't  that 
what  you  want  me  to  do?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "But  you're  not  engaged  to  her! 
You  just — 

Ashley:  "Just  what?" 

Miss  Ramsey,  desperately:  "You  wish  me  to 
disgrace  myself  forever  in  your  eyes.  Well,  I 
will;  what  does  it  matter  now?  I  heard  you 
telling  Esther  you  were  not  engaged.  I  overheard 
you." 

Ashley:  "I  fancied  you  must." 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Miss  Ramsey:  "I  tried  to  overhear!  I  eaves 
dropped!  I  wish  you  to  know  that." 

Ashley:  "And  what  do  you  wish  me  to  do 
about  it?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "I  should  think  any  self-respect 
ing  person  would  know.  I'm  not  a  self-respecting 
person."  Her  wandering  gaze  seems  to  fall  for 
the  first  time  upon  the  tray  with  the  cocktails 
and  glasses  and  cigarettes;  she  flies  at  the  bell- 
button  and  presses  it  impetuously.  As  the  maid 
appears :  ' '  Take  these  things  away,  Nora,  please !" 
To  Ashley  when  the  maid  has  left  the  room: 
"Don't  be  afraid  to  say  what  you  think  of  me!" 

Ashley:  "I  think  all  the  world  of  you.  But  I 
should  merely  like  to  ask — " 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Oh,  you  can  ask  anything  of 
me  now!" 

Ashley,  with  palpable  insincerity:  "I  should 
like  to  ask  why  you  don't  respect  yourself?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Was  that  what  you  were  going 
to  ask?  I  know  it  wasn't.  But  I  will  tell  you. 
Because  I  have  been  a  fool." 

Ashley.  "Thank  you.  Now  I  will  tell  you 
what  I  was  really  going  to  ask.  Why  did  you  wish 
to  drive  me  back  to  Miss  Fray  when  you  knew 
that  I  would  be  false  to  her  a  thousand  times 
if  I  could  only  once  be  true  to  you?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Now  you  are  insulting  me! 
312 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

And  that  is  just  the  point.  You  may  be  a  very 
clever  lawyer,  Mr.  Ashley,  and  everybody  says 
you  are — very  able,  and  talented,  and  all  that, 
but  you  can't  get  round  that  point.  You  may 
torture  any  meaning  you  please  out  of  my  words, 
but  I  shall  always  say  you  brought  it  on  yourself." 

Ashley:  "Brought  what  on?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Mr.  Ashley!  I  won't  be  cross- 
questioned." 

Ashley:  "Was  that  why  you  smoked,  and 
poured  cocktails  out  of  an  unopened  bottle  ?  Was 
it  because  you  wished  me  to  hate  you,  and  re 
member  my  duty,  and  go  back  to  Miss  Fray? 
Well,  it  was  a  dead  failure.  It  made  me  love  you 
more  than  ever.  I  am  a  fool  too,  as  you  call  it." 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Say  anything  you  please.  I 
have  given  you  the  right.  I  shall  not  resent  it. 
Go  on." 

Ashley:  "I  should  only  repeat  myself.  You 
must  have  known  how  much  I  care  for  you, 
Isobel.  Do  you  mind  my  calling  you  Isobel?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Not  in  the  least  if  you  wish  to 
humiliate  me  by  it.  I  should  like  you  to  trample 
on  me  in  every  way  you  can." 

Ashley:  "Trample  on  you?  I  would  rather  be 
run  over  by  a  steam-roller  than  tread  on  the  least 
of  your  outlying  feelings,  dearest.  Do  you  mind 
my  saying  dearest?" 

313 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Miss  Ramsey:  "I  have  told  you  that  you  can 
say  anything  you  like.  I  deserve  it.  But  oh,  if 
you  have  a  spark  of  pity — 

Ashley:  "I'm  a  perfect  conflagration  of  com 
passion,  darling.  Do  you  object  to  darling?" 

Miss  Ramsey,  with  starting  tears:  "It  doesn't 
matter  now."  She  has  let  her  lovely  length  trail 
into  the  corner  of  the  sofa,  where  she  desperately 
reclines,  supporting  her  elbow  on  the  arm  of  it, 
and  resting  her  drooping  head  on  her  hand.  He 
draws  a  hassock  up  in  front  of  her,  and  sits  on  it. 

Ashley:  "This  represents  kneeling  at  your  feet. 
One  doesn't  do  it  literally  any  more,  you  know." 

Miss  Ramsey,  in  a  hollow  voice:  "I  should 
despise  you  if  you  did,  and" — deeply  mur 
murous — "I  don't  wish  to  despise  you." 

Ashley:  "No,  I  understand  that.  You  merely 
wish  me  to  despise  you.  But  why?" 

Miss  Ramsey,  nervously :  ' '  You  know. ' ' 

Ashley:  "But  I  don't  know — Isobel,  dearest, 
darling,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  express  myself  so 
fully.  How  should  I  know?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "I've  told  you." 

Ashley:  "May  I  take  your  hand?  For  good- 
by!"  He  possesses  himself  of  it.  "It  seems  to 
go  along  with  those  expressions." 

Miss  Ramsey,  self -contemptuously :  "  Oh  yes." 

Ashley:  "Thank  you.     Where  were  we?" 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Miss  Ramsey,  sitting  up  and  recovering  her 
hand:  "You  were  saying  good-by — " 

Ashley:  "Was  I?  But  not  before  I  had  told 
you  that  I  knew  you  were  doing  all  that  for  my 
best  good,  and  I  wish — I  wish  you  could  have  seen 
how  exemplary  you  looked  when  you  were  trying 
to  pour  a  cocktail  out  of  a  corked  bottle,  between 
your  remarks  on  passionate  fiction  and  puffs  of  the 
insidious  cigarette!  When  the  venomous  tobacco 
began  to  get  in  its  deadly  work,  and  you  turned 
pale  and  reeled  a  little,  and  called  for  air,  it  made 
me  mentally  vow  to  go  back  to  Miss  Fray  in 
stantly,  whether  I  was  engaged  to  her  or  not,  and 
cut  out  poor  old  Brooks — " 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Was  it  Mr.  Brooks?  I  didn't 
hear  the  name  exactly." 

Ashley:  "When  I  was  telling  Miss  Garnett?  I 
ought  to  have  spoken  louder,  but  I  wasn't  sure  at 
the  time  you  were  listening.  Though  as  you  were 
saying,  what  does  it  matter  now?" 

Miss  Ramsey:  "Did  I  say  that?" 

Ashley:  "Words  to  that  effect.  And  they  have 
made  me  feel  how  unworthy  of  you  I  am.  I'm 
not  heroic — by  nature.  But  I  could  be,  if  you 
made  me — by  art — " 

Miss  Ramsey,  springing  to  her  feet  indignantly: 
"Now,  you  are  ridiculing  me — you  are  making 
fun  of  me." 


SELF-SACRIFICE:    A  FARCE-TRAGEDY 

Ashley,  gathering  himself  up  from  his  hassock 
with  difficulty,  and  confronting  her:  "Do  I  look 
like  a  man  who  would  dare  to  make  fun  of  you? 
I  am  half  a  head  shorter  than  you,  and  in  moral 
grandeur  you  overtop  me  so  that  I  would  always 
have  to  wear  a  high  hat  when  I  was  with  you." 

Miss  Ramsey,  thoughtfully:  "Plenty  of  girls 
are  that  way,  now.  But  if  you  are  ashamed  of 
my  being  tall—  Flashingly,  and  with  starting 
tears. 

Ashley:  "Ashamed!  I  can  always  look  up  to 
you,  you  can  always  stoop  to  me!"  He  stretches 
his  arms  toward  her. 

Miss  Ramsey,  recoiling  bewildered :  ' '  Wait !  We 
haven't  got  to  that  yet." 

Ashley:  "Oh,  Isobel — dearest — darling!  We've 
got  past  it!  We're  on  the  home  stretch,  now." 


THE    NIGHT    BEFORE 
CHRISTMAS 


XIX 
THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

A  MORALITY 


MR.    AND   MRS.    CLARENCE    FOUNTAIN 


.  CLARENCE  FOUNTAIN,  backing  into 
the  room,  and  closing  the  door  noiselessly 
before  looking  round:  "Oh,  you  poor  thing!  I 
can  see  that  you  are  dead,  at  the  first  glance.  I'm 
dead  myself,  for  that  matter."  She  is  speaking 
to  her  husband,  who  clings  with  one  hand  to  the 
chimney-piece,  and  supports  his  back  with  the 
other;  from  this  hand  a  little  girl's  long  stocking 
lumpily  dangles;  Mrs.  Fountain,  turning  round, 
observes  it.  "Not  finished  yet?  But  I  don't 
wonder!  I  wonder  you've  even  begun.  Well, 
now,  I  will  take  hold  with  you."  In  token  of  the 
aid  she  is  going  to  give,  Mrs.  Fountain  sinks  into 
a  chair  and  rolls  a  distracted  eye  over  the  littered 
and  tumbled  room.  "It's  worse  than  I  thought  it 

319 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

would  be.  You  ought  to  have  smoothed  the 
papers  out  and  laid  them  in  a  pile  as  fast  as  you 
unwrapped  the  things;  that  is  the  way  I  always 
do;  and  wound  the  strings  up  and  put  them  one 
side.  Then  you  wouldn't  have  had  to  wade  round 
in  them.  I  suppose  I  oughtn't  to  have  left  it  to 
you,  but  if  I  had  let  you  put  the  children  to  bed 
you  know  you'd  have  told  them  stories  and  kept 
them  all  night  over  their  prayers.  And  as  it  was 
each  of  them  wanted  to  put  in  a  special  Christmas 
clause;  I  know  what  kind  of  Christmas  clause  I 
should  have  put  in  if  I'd  been  frank!  I'm  not 
sure  it's  right  to  keep  up  the  deception.  One 
comfort,  the  oldest  ones  don't  believe  in  it  any 
more  than  we  do.  Dear  !  I  did  think  at  one 
time  this  afternoon  I  should  have  to  be  brought 
home  in  an  ambulance;  it  would  have  been  a 
convenience,  with  all  the  packages.  I  simply 
marvel  at  their  delivery  wagons  getting  them 
here." 

Fountain,  coming  to  the  table,  where  she  sits, 
and  taking  up  one  of  the  toys  with  which  it  is 
strewn:  "They  haven't  all  of  them." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "What  do  you  mean  by  all  of 
them?" 

Fountain:  "I  mean  half."  He  takes  up  a  me 
chanical  locomotive  and  stuffs  it  into  the  stock 
ing  he  holds. 

320 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Mrs.  Fountain,  staying  his  hand:  "What  are 
you  doing?  Putting  Jimmy's  engine  into  Susy's 
stocking!  She'll  be  perfectly  insulted  when  she 
finds  it,  for  she'll  know  you  weren't  paying  the 
least  attention,  and  you  can't  blame  Santa  Glaus 
for  it  with  her.  If  that's  what  you've  been  doing 
with  the  other  stockings —  But  there  aren't  any 
others.  Don't  tell  me  you've  just  begun!  Well, 
I  could  simply  cry." 

Fountain,  dropping  into  the  chair  on  the  other 
side  of  the  table,  under  the  shelter  of  a  tall  Christ 
mas  tree  standing  on  it :  "  Do  you  call  unwrapping 
a  whole  car-load  of  truck  and  getting  it  sorted, 
just  beginning?  I've  been  slaving  here  from  the 
dawn  of  time,  and  I  had  to  have  some  leisure  for 
the  ghosts  of  my  own  Christmases  when  I  was 
little.  I  didn't  have  to  wade  round  in  the  wrap 
pings  of  my  presents  in  those  days.  But  it  isn't 
the  sad  memories  that  take  it  out  of  you;  it's  the 
happy  ones.  I've  never  had  a  ghastlier  half -hour 
than  I've  just  spent  in  the  humiliating  multiplicity 
of  these  gifts.  All  the  old  birthdays  and  wedding- 
days  and  Fourth  of  Julys  and  home-comings  and 
children's  christenings  I've  ever  had  came  troop 
ing  back.  There  oughtn't  to  be  any  gay  anniver 
saries;  they  should  be  forbidden  by  law.  If  I 
could  only  have  recalled  a  few  dangerous  fevers 
and  funerals!" 

21  321 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Mrs.  Fountain:  " Clarence!  Don't  say  such  a 
thing ;  you'll  be  punished  for  it.  I  know  how  you 
suffer  from  those  gloomy  feelings,  and  I  pity  you. 
You  ought  to  bear  up  against  them.  If  I  gave 
way !  You  must  think  about  something  cheerful  in 
the  future  when  the  happiness  of  the  past  afflicts 
you,  and  set  one  against  the  other;  life  isn't  all  a 
vale  of  tears.  You  must  keep  your  mind  fixed  on 
the  work  before  you.  I  don't  believe  it's  the 
number  of  the  packages  here  that's  broken  you 
down.  It's  the  shopping  that's  worn  you  out; 
I'm  sure  I'm  a  mere  thread.  And  I  had  been  at 
it  from  immediately  after  breakfast ;  and  I  lunched 
in  one  of  the  stores  with  ten  thousand  suburbans 
who  had  come  pouring  in  with  the  first  of  their  un 
natural  trains:  I  did  hope  I  should  have  some  of 
the  places  to  myself;  but  they  were  every  one 
jammed.  And  you  came  up  from  your  office  about 
four,  perfectly  fresh." 

Fountain:  " Fresh!  Yes,  quite  dewy  from  a 
day's  fight  with  the  beasts  at  Ephesus  on  the  eve 
of  Christmas  week." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Well,  don't  be  cynical,  Clar 
ence,  on  this,  of  all  nights  of  the  year.  You  know 
how  sorry  I  always  am  for  what  you  have  to  go 
through  down  there,  and  I  suppose  it's  worse,  as 
you  say,  at  this  season  than  any  other  time  of 
year.  It's  the  terrible  concentration  of  every- 

322 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

thing  just  before  Christmas  that  makes  it  so  kill 
ing.  I  really  don't  know  which  of  the  places  was 
the  worst ;  the  big  department  stores  or  the  sepa 
rate  places  for  jewelry  and  toys  and  books  and 
stationery  and  antiques;  they  were  all  alike,  and 
all  maddening.  And  the  rain  outside,  and  every 
body  coming  in  reeking;  though  I  don't  believe 
that  sunshine  would  have  been  any  better;  there'd 
have  been  more  of  them.  I  declare,  it  made  my 
heart  ache  for  those  poor  creatures  behind  the 
counters,  and  I  don't  know  whether  I  suffered 
most  for  them  when  they  kept  up  a  ghastly  cheer 
fulness  in  their  attention  or  were  simply  insulting 
in  their  indifference.  I  know  they  must  be  all 
dead  by  this  time.  'Going  up?'  'Going  down?' 
'Ca-ish!'  'Here,  boy!'  I  believe  it  will  ring  in 
my  ears  as  long  as  I  live.  And  the  whiz  of  those 
overhead  wire  things,  and  having  to  wait  ages 
for  your  change,  and  then  drag  your  tatters  out 
of  the  stores  into  the  streets!  If  I  hadn't  had  you 
with  me  at  the  last  I  should  certainly  have 
dropped." 

Fountain:  "Yes,  and  what  had  become  of  your 
good  resolutions  about  doing  all  your  Christmas 
shopping  in" July?" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "M;y  good  resolutions?  Really, 
Clarence,  sometimes  if  it  were  not  cruelty  to 
animals  I  should  like  to  hit  you.  My  good — 

323 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

You  know  that  you  suggested  that  plan,  and  it 
wasn't  even  original  with  you.  The  papers  have 
been  talking  about  it  for  years;  but  when  you 
brought  it  up  as  such  a  new  idea,  I  fell  in  with  it 
to  please  you — " 

Fountain:  "Now,  look  out,  Lucy!" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Yes,  to  please  you,  and  to 
help  you  forget  the  Christmas  worry,  just  as  I've 
been  doing  to-night.  You  never  spare  me." 

Fountain:  "Stick  to  the  record.  Why  didn't 
you  do  your  Christmas  shopping  in  July?" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Why  didn't  I?  Did  you  ex 
pect  me  to  do  my  Christmas  shopping  down  at 
Sculpin  Beach,  where  I  spent  the  whole  time  from 
the  middle  of  June  till  the  middle  of  September? 
Why  didn't  you  do  the  Christmas  shopping  in 
July?  You  had  the  stores  under  your  nose  here 
from  the  beginning  till  the  end  of  summer,  with 
nothing  in  the  world  to  hinder  you,  and  not  a 
chick  or  a  child  to  look  after." 

Fountain:  "Oh,  I  like  that.  You  think  I  was 
leading  a  life  of  complete  leisure  here,  with  the 
thermometer  among  the  nineties  nine-tenths  of 
the  time?" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "I  only  know  you  were  brag 
ging  in  all  your  letters  about  your  bath  and  your 
club,  and  the  folly  of  any  one  going  away  from  the 
cool,  comfortable  town  in  the  summer.  I  sup- 

324 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

pose  you'll  say  that  was  to  keep  me  from  feeling 
badly  at  leaving  you.  When  it  was  only  for  the 
children's  sake!  I  will  let  you  take  them  the  next 
time." 

Fountain:  " While  you  look  after  my  office? 
And  you  think  the  stores  are  full  of  Christmas 
things  in  July,  I  suppose." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "I  never  thought  so;  and  now 
I  hope  you  see  the  folly  of  that  idea.  No,  Clar 
ence.  We  must  be  logical  in  everything.  You 
can't  get  rid  of  Christmas  shopping  at  Christmas 
time." 

Fountain,  shouting  wrathfully:  ''Then  I  say  get 
rid  of  Christmas!" 

ii 

MR.   FRANK    WATKINS,    MRS.  FOUNTAIN,    FOUNTAIN 

Watkins,  opening  the  door  for  himself  and 
struggling  into  the  room  with  an  armful  of  parcels : 
"I'm  with  you  there,  Clarence.  Christmas  is  at 
the  root  of  Christmas  shopping,  and  Christmas 
giving,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  Oh,  you  needn't  be 
afraid,  Lucy.  I  didn't  hear  any  epithets;  just 
caught  the  drift  of  your  argument  through  the 
keyhole.  I've  been  kicking  at  the  door  ever 
since  you  began.  Where  shall  I  dump  these 
things?" 

325 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Oh,  you  poor  boy!  Here — 
anywhere — on  the  floor — on  the  sofa — on  the 
table."  She  clears  several  spaces  and  helps  Wat- 
kins  unload.  "Clarence!  I'm  surprised  at  you. 
What  are  you  thinking  of?" 

Fountain:  "I'm  thinking  that  if  this  goes  on, 
I'll  let  somebody  else  arrange  the  presents." 

Watkins:  "  If  I  saw  a  man  coming  into  my  house 
with  a  load  like  this  to-night,  I'd  throw  him  into 
the  street.  But  living  in  a  ninth-story  flat  like 
you,  it  might  hurt  him." 

Mrs.  Fountain,  reading  the  inscriptions  on  the 
packages:  "'For  Benny  from  his  uncle  Frank/ 
Oh,  how  sweet  of  you,  Frank!  And  here's  a  kiss 
for  his  uncle  Frank."  She  embraces  him  with  as 
little  interruption  as  possible.  "'From  Uncle 
Frank  to  Jim.'  Oh,  I  know  what  that  is!"  She 
feels  the  package  over.  '  *  And  this  is  for  '  Susy  from 
her  aunt  Sue.'  Oh,  I  knew  she  would  remember 
her  namesake.  'For  Maggie.  Merry  Christmas 
from  Mrs.  Watkins.'  'Bridget,  with  Mrs.  Wat- 
kins's  best  wishes  for  a  Merry  Christmas.'  Both 
the  girls!  But  it's  like  Sue;  she  never  forgets 
anybody.  And  what's  this  for  Clarence?  I  must 
know!  Not  a  bath-gown?"  Undoing  it:  "I 
simply  must  see  it.  Blue!  His  very  color!" 
Holding  it  up:  "From  you,  Frank?"  He  nods. 
"Clarence!" 

326 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Watkins:  "If  Fountain  tries  to  kiss  me,  I'll—" 

Fountain:  "I  wouldn't  kiss  you  for  a  dozen 
bath-gowns."  Lifting  it  up  from  the  floor  where 
Mrs.  Fountain  has  dropped  it :  "It  is  rather  nice." 

Watkins:  "Don't  overwhelm  me." 

Mrs.  Fountain,  dancing  about  with  a  long,  soft 
roll  in  her  hand :  "  Oh,  oh,  oh !  She  saw  me  gloat 
ing  on  it  at  Shumaker's!  I  do  wonder  if  it  2*5-." 

Fountain,  reaching  for  it :  *  *  Why,  open  it — 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "You  dare!  No,  it  shall  be 
opened  the  very  last  thing  in  the  morning,  now,  to 
punish  you !  How  is  poor  Sue  ?  I  saw  her  literally 
dropping  by  the  way  at  Shumaker's." 

Watkins,  making  for  the  door:  "Well,  she  must 
have  got  up  again.  I  left  her  registering  a  vow 
that  if  ever  she  lived  to  see  another  Christmas  she 
would  leave  the  country  months  before  the  shop 
ping  began.  She  called  down  maledictions  on  all 
the  recipients  of  her  gifts  and  wished  them  the 
worst  harm  that  can  befall  the  wicked." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Poor  Sue!  She  simply  lives 
to  do  people  good,  and  I  can  understand  exactly 
how  she  feels  toward  them.  I'll  be  round  bright 
and  early  to-morrow  to  thank  her.  Why  do  you 
go?" 

Watkins:  "Well,  I  can't  stay  here  all  night,  and 
I'd  better  let  you  and  Clarence  finish  up."  He 
escapes  from  her  detaining  embrace  and  runs  out, 

327 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 
in 

MRS.    FOUNTAIN,    FOUNTAIN 

Mrs.  Fountain,  intent  upon  her  roll:  "How 
funny  he  is!  I  wonder  if  he  did  hear  anything 
but  our  scolding  voices?  Where  were  we?" 

Fountain:  "I  had  just  called  you  a  serpent." 

Mrs.  Fountain,  with  amusement:  "No,  really?" 
Feeling  the  parcel:  "If  it's  that  Spanish  lace  scarf 
I  can  tell  her  it  was  machine  lace.  I  saw  it  at  the 
first  glance.  But  poor  Sue  has  no  taste.  I  sup 
pose  I  must  stand  it.  But  I  can't  bear  to  think 
what  she's  given  the  girls  and  children.  She 
means  well.  Did  you  really  say  serpent,  Clar 
ence?  You  never  called  me  just  that  before." 

Fountain:  "No,  but  you  called  me  a  laughing 
hyena,  and  said  I  scoffed  at  everything  sacred." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "I  can't  remember  using  the 
word  hyena,  exactly,  though  I  do  think  the  way 
you  talk  about  Christmas  is  dreadful.  But  I  take 
back  the  laughing  hyena." 

Fountain:  "And  I  take  back  the  serpent.  I 
meant  dove,  anyway.  But  it's  this  Christmas 
time  when  a  man  gets  so  tired  he  doesn't  know 
what  he's  saying." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Well,  you're  good,  anyway, 
dearest,  whatever  you  say;  and  now  I'm  going  to 

328 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

help  you  arrange  the  things.  I  suppose  there'll  be 
lots  more  to-morrow,  but  we  must  get  rid  of  these 
now.  Don't  you  wish  nobody  would  do  anything 
for  us?  Just  the  children — dear  little  souls!  I 
don't  believe  but  what  we  can  make  Jim  and  Susy 
believe  in  Santa  Glaus  again;  Benny  is  firm  in 
the  faith;  he  put  him  into  his  prayer.  I  declare, 
his  sweetness  almost  broke  my  heart."  At  a 
knock:  " Who's  that,  I  wonder?  Come  in!  Oh, 
it's  you,  Maggie.  Well?" 

IV 

THE   FOUNTAINS,    FOUNTAIN'S    SISTERS 

Maggie:  "It's  Mr.  Fountain's  sisters  just  tele 
phoned  up." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Have  them  come  up  at  once, 
Maggie,  of  course."  As  Maggie  goes  out:  "An 
other  interruption!  If  it's  going  to  keep  on  like 
this!  Shouldn't  you  have  thought  they  might 
have  sent  their  presents?" 

Fountain:  "I  thought  something  like  it  in 
Frank's  case;  but  I  didn't  say  it." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "And  I  don't  know  why  I  say 
it,  now.  It's  because  I'm  so  tired  I  don't  know 
what  I  am  saying.  Do  forgive  me!  It's  this  ter 
rible  Christmas  spirit  that  gets  into  me.  But  now 
you'll  see  how  nice  I  can  be  to  them."  At  a  tap 

329 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

on  the  door:  "Come  in!  Come  in!  Don't  mind 
our  being  in  all  this  mess.  So  darling  of  you  to 
come!  You  can  help  cheer  Clarence  up;  you 
know  his  Christmas  Eve  dumps."  She  runs  to 
them  and  clasps  them  in  her  arms  with  several 
half -open  packages  dangling  from  her  hands  and 
contrasting  their  disarray  with  the  neatness  of 
their  silk-ribboned  and  tissue-papered  parcels 
which  their  embrace  makes  meet  at  her  back. 
"Minnie!  Aggie!  To  lug  here,  when  you  ought 
to  be  at  home  in  bed  dying  of  fatigue!  But  it's 
just  like  you,  both  of  you.  Did  you  ever  see  any 
thing  like  the  stores  to-day?  Do  sit  down,  or 
swoon  on  the  floor,  or  anything.  Let  me  have 
those  wretched  bundles  which  are  simply  killing 
you."  She  looks  at  the  different  packages.  "  'For 
Benny  from  Grandpa.'  'For  a  good  girl,  from 
Susy's  grandmother.'  'Jim,  from  Aunt  Minnie 
and  Aunt  Aggie.'  'Lucy,  with  love  from  Aggie 
and  Minnie.'  And  Clarence!  What  hearts  you 
have  got !  Well,  I  always  say  there  never  were  such 
thoughtful  girls,  and  you  always  show  such  taste 
and  such  originality.  I  long  to  get  at  the  things." 
She  keeps  fingering  the  large  bundle  marked  with 
her  husband's  name.  "Not — not — a — " 

Minnie:  "Yes,  a  bath-robe.  Unless  you  give 
him  a  cigar-case  it's  about  the  only  thing  you  can 
give  a  man." 

330 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Aggie:  "Minnie  thought  of  it  and  I  chose  it. 
Blue,  because  it's  his  color.  Try  it  on,  Clarence, 
and  if  it's  too  long — " 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Yes,  do,  dear!  Let's  see  you 
with  it  on."  While  the  girls  are  fussily  opening 
the  robe,  she  manages  to  push  her  brother's  gift 
behind  the  door.  Then,  without  looking  round 
at  her  husband.  "It  isn't  a  bit  too  long.  Just 
the  very—  Looking:  "Well,  it  can  easily  be 
taken  up  at  the  hem.  I  can  do  it  to-morrow." 
She  abandons  him  to  his  awkward  isolation  while 
she  chatters  on  with  his  sisters.  "Sit  down;  I 
insist!  Don't  think  of  going.  Did  you  see  that 
frightful  pack  of  people  when  the  cab  horse  fell 
down  in  front  of  Shumaker's?" 

Minnie:  "See  it?" 

Aggie:  "We  were  in  the  midst  of  it!  I  wonder 
we  ever  got  out  alive.  It's  enough  to  make  you 
wish  never  to  see  another  Christmas  as  long  as 
you  live." 

Minnie:  "A  great  many  won't  live.  There  will 
be  more  grippe,  and  more  pneumonia,  and  more 
appendicitis  from  those  jams  of  people  in  the 
stores!" 

Aggie:  "The  germs  must  have  been  swarm 
ing." 

Fountain:  "Lucy  was  black  with  them  when 
we  got  home." 

33i 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Don't  pay  the  slightest  atten 
tion  to  him,  girls.  He'll  probably  be  the  first  to 
sneeze  himself." 

Minnie:  "I  don't  know  about  sneezing.  I  shall 
only  be  too  glad  if  I  don't  have  nervous  prostra 
tion  from  it." 

Aggie:  "I'm  glad  we  got  our  motor-car  just  in 
time.  Any  one  that  goes  in  the  trolleys  now  will 
take  their  life  in  their  hand."  The  girls  rise  and 
move  toward  the  door.  "Well,  we  must  goon 
now.  We're  making  a  regular  round;  you  can't 
trust  the  delivery  wagons  at  a  time  like  this. 
Good-by.  Merry  Christmas  to  the  children. 
They're  fast  asleep  by  this  time,  I  suppose." 

Minnie:  "I  only  wish  I  was!" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "I  believe  you,  Minnie.  Good- 
by.  Good  night.  Good  night,  Aggie.  Clarence, 
go  to  the  elevator  with  them!  Or  no,  he  can't 
in  that  ridiculous  bath-gown  ! "  Turning  to 
Fountain  as  the  door  closes:  "Now  I've  done  it." 


v 

MRS.    FOUNTAIN,    FOUNTAIN 

Fountain:  "It  isn't  a    thing  you   could   have 
wished  to  phrase  that  way,  exactly." 

Mrs.  Fountain:   "And  you   made   me   do   it. 
332 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Never  thanking  them,  or  anything,  and  standing 
there  like  I  don't  know  what,  and  leaving  the  talk 
all  to  me.  And  now,  making  me  lose  my  temper 
again,  when  I  wanted  to  be  so  nice  to  you.  Well, 
it  is  no  use  trying,  and  from  this  on  I  won't. 
Clarence!"  She  has  opened  the  parcel  addressed 
to  herself  and  now  stands  transfixed  with  joy  and 
wonder.  "See  what  the  girls  have  given  me! 
The  very  necklace  I've  been  longing  for  at  Planets', 
and  denying  myself  for  the  last  fortnight!  Well, 
never  will  I  say  your  sisters  are  mean  again." 

Fountain:  "You  ought  to  have  said  that  to 
them." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "It  quite  reconciles  one  to 
Christmas.  What?  Oh,  that  was  rather  nasty. 
You  know  I  didn't  mean  it.  I  was  so  excited  I 
didn't  know  what  I  was  saying.  I'm  sure  nobody 
ever  got  on  better  with  sisters-in-law,  and  that 
shows  my  tact;  if  I  do  make  a  slip,  now  and  then, 
I  can  always  get  out  of  it.  They  will  understand. 
Do  you  think  it  was  very  nice  of  them  to  flaunt 
their  new  motor  in  my  face?  But  of  course  any 
thing  your  family  does  is  perfect,  and  always  was, 
though  I  must  say  this  necklace  is  sweet  of  them. 
I  wonder  they  had  the  taste."  A  tap  on  the  door 
is  heard.  "Come  in,  Maggie!"  Sottovoce.  "Take 
it  off."  She  snatches  his  bath-robe  and  tosses  it 
behind  the  door. 

333 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

VI 
WILBUR   HAZARD,    THE   FOUNTAINS 

Hazard:  "I  suppose  I  can  come  in,  even  if  I'm 
not  Maggie.  Catch,  Fountain."  He  tosses  a 
large  bundle  to  Fountain.  "It's  huge,  but  it 
isn't  hefty."  He  turns  to  go  out  again. 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Oh,  oh,  oh!  Don't  go!  Come 
in  and  help  us.  What  have  you  brought  Clarence ! 
May  I  feel?" 

Hazard:  "  You  can  look,  if  you  like.  I'm  rather 
proud  of  it.  There's  only  one  other  thing  you 
can  give  a  man,  and  I  said,  'No,  not  a  cigar-case. 
Fountain  smokes  enough  already,  but  if  a  bath 
robe  can  induce  him  to  wash—  He  goes  out. 

Mrs.  Fountain,  screaming  after  him  through  the 
open  door :  ' '  Oh,  how  good !  Come  back  and  see 
it  on  him."  She  throws  the  bath-robe  over  Foun 
tain's  shoulders. 

Hazard,  looking  in  again:  "Perfect  fit,  just  as 
the  Jew  said,  and  the  very  color  for  Fountain." 
He  vanishes,  shutting  the  door  behind  him. 

VII 
MRS.    FOUNTAIN,    FOUNTAIN 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "How  coarse!  Well,  my  dear, 
I  don't  know  where  you  picked  up  your  bachelor 
friends.  I  hope  this  is  the  last  of  them." 

334 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Fountain:  " Hazard's  the  only  one  who  has  sur 
vived  your  rigorous  treatment.  But  he  always 
had  a  passion  for  cold  shoulder,  poor  fellow.  As 
bath-robes  go,  this  isn't  bad."  He  gets  his  arms 
into  it,  and  walks  up  and  down.  "Heigh?" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Yes,  it  is  pretty  good.  But 
the  worst  of  Christmas  is  that  it  rouses  up  all 
your  old  friends." 

Fountain:  "They  feel  so  abnormally  good,  con 
found  them.  I  suppose  poor  old  Hazard  half 
killed  himself  looking  this  thing  up  and  building 
the  joke  to  go  with  it." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Well,  take  it  off,  now,  and 
come  help  me  with  the  children's  presents.  You're 
quite  forgetting  about  them,  and  it  '11  be  morning 
and  you'll  have  the  little  wretches  swarming  in 
before  you  can  turn  round.  Dear  little  souls!  I 
can  sympathize  with  their  impatience,  of  course. 
But  what  are  you  going  to  do  with  these  bath 
robes?  You  can't  wear  four  bath-robes." 

Fountain:  "I  can  change  them  every  day.  But 
there  ought  to  be  seven.  This  hood  is  rather  a 
new  wrinkle,  though,  isn't  it?  I  suppose  it's  for 
a  voyage,  and  you  pull  it  up  over  your  head  when 
you  come  through  the  corridor  back  to  your  state 
room.  We  shall  have  to  go  to  Europe,  Lucy." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "I  would  go  to  Asia,  Africa, 
and  Oceanica,  to  escape  another  Christmas. 

335 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Now  if  there  are  any  more  bath-robes —    Come 
in,  Maggie." 

VIII 
MAGGIE,    THE   FOUNTAINS 

Maggie,  bringing  in  a  bundle:  " Something  a 
District  Messenger  brought.  Will  you  sign  for 
it,  ma'am?" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "You  sign,  Clarence.  If  I 
know  anything  about  the  look  and  the  feel  of  a 
bundle,  this  is  another  bath-robe,  but  I  shall  soon 
see."  While  she  is  cutting  the  string  and  tearing 
the  wrappings  away,  Fountain  signs  and  Maggie 
goes.  Mrs.  Fountain  shakes  out  the  folds  of  the 
robe.  "Well,  upon  my  word,  I  should  think  there 
was  conspiracy  to  insult  you,  Clarence.  I  should 
like  to  know  who  has  had  the  effrontery—  What's 
on  it?" 

Fountain,  reading  from  the  card  which  had 
fallen  out  of  the  garment  to  the  floor:  "'With 
Christmas  greetings  from  Mrs.  Arthur  J.  Gibby.' ' 

Mrs.  Fountain,  dropping  the  robe  and  seizing 
the  card:  "Mrs.  Arthur  J.  Gibby!  Well,  upon 
my  word,  this  is  impudence.  It's  not  only  im 
pudence,  it's  indelicacy.  And  I  had  always 
thought  she  was  the  very  embodiment  of  refine 
ment,  and  I've  gone  about  saying  so.  Now  I  shall 

336 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

have  to  take  it  back.  The  idea  of  a  lady  sending 
a  bath-robe  to  a  gentleman!  What  next,  I  won 
der!  What  right  has  Mrs.  Gibby  to  send  you  a 
bath-robe?  Don't  prevaricate!  Remember  that 
the  truth  is  the  only  thing  that  can  save  you. 
Matters  must  have  gone  pretty  far,  when  a  woman 
could  send  you  anything  so — intimate.  What 
are  you  staring  at  with  that  paper?  You  needn't 
hope  to  divert  my  mind  by — " 

Fountain,  giving  her  the  paper  in  which  the  robe 
came:  "Seems  to  be  for  Mrs.  Clarence  Fountain." 

Mrs.  Fountain,  snatching  it  from  him:  "What! 
It  is,  it  is!  Oh,  poor  dear  Lilly!  How  can  you 
ever  forgive  me  ?  She  saw  me  looking  at  it  to-day 
at  Shumaker's,  and  it  must  have  come  into  her 
head  in  despair  what  else  to  get  me.  But  it  was 
a  perfect  inspiration — for  it  was  just  what  I  was 
longing  for.  Why" — laughing  hysterically  while 
she  holds  up  the  robe,  and  turns  it  this  way  and 
that — "I  might  have  seen  at  a  glance  that  it 
wasn't  a  man's,  with  this  lace  on  and  this  silk 
hood,  and" — she  hurries  into  it,  and  pulls  it  for 
ward,  looking  down  at  either  side — "it's  just  the 
right  length,  and  if  it  was  made  for  me  it  couldn't 
fit  me  better.  What  a  joke  I  shall  have  with 
Lilly,  when  I  tell  her  about  it.  I  sha'n't  spare 
myself  a  bit!" 

Fountain:  "Then  I  hope  you'll  spare  me.    I 
22  337 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

have  some  little  delicacy  of  feeling,  and  I  don't 
like  the  notion  of  a  lady's  giving  me  a  bath-robe. 
It's — intimate.  I  don't  know  where  you  picked 
up  your  girl  friends." 

Mrs.  Fountain,  capering  about  joyfully:  "Oh, 
how  funny  you  are,  darling!  But  go  on.  I  don't 
mind  it,  now.  And  you  may  be  glad  you've  got 
off  so  easily.  Only  now  if  there  are  any  more 
bath-robes — "  A  timid  rap  is  heard  at  the  door. 
"Come  in,  Maggie!"  The  door  is  slowly  set  ajar, 
then  flung  suddenly  wide  open,  and  Jim  and  Susy 
in  their  night-gowns  rush  dancing  and  exulting  in. 

IX 
JIM,    SUSY,    THE    FOUNTAINS 

Susy:  "We've  caught  you,  we've  caught  you." 

Jim:  "I  just  bet  it  was  you,  and  now  I've  won, 
haven't  I,  mother?" 

Susy:  "And  I've  won,  too,  haven't  I,  father?" 
Arrested  at  sight  of  her  father  in  the  hooded 
bath-gown:  "He  does  look  like  Santa  Claus, 
doesn't  he,  Jimmy?  But  the  real  Santa  Claus 
would  be  all  over  snow,  and  a  long,  white  beard. 
You  can't  fool  us!" 

Jim:  "You  can't  fool  us!  We  know  you,  we 
know  you!  And  mother  dressed  up,  too!  There 
isn't  any  Mrs.  Santa  Claus,  and  that  proves  it!" 

338 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Mrs.  Fountain,  severely:  "  Dreadful  little 
things!  Who  said  you  might  come  here?  Go 
straight  back  to  bed,  this  minute,  or —  Will  you 
send  them  back,  Clarence,  and  not  stand  staring 
so?  What  are  you  thinking  of?" 

Fountain,  dreamily:  "Nothing.  Merely  won 
dering  what  we  shall  do  when  we've  got  rid  of  our 
superstitions.  Shall  we  be  the  better  for  it,  or 
even  the  wiser?" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "What  put  that  question  into 
your  head?  Christmas,  I  suppose;  and  that's 
another  reason  for  wishing  there  was  no  such 
thing.  If  I  had  my  way,  there  wouldn't  be." 

Jim:  "Oh,  mother!" 

Susy:  "No  Christmas?" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Well,  not  for  disobedient  chil 
dren  who  get  out  of  bed  and  come  in,  spoiling 
everything.  If  you  don't  go  straight  back,  it  will 
be  the  last  time,  Santa  Claus  or  no  Santa  Claus." 

Jim:  "And  if  we  go  right  back?" 

Susy:  "And  promise  not  to  come  in  any  more?" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Well,  we'll  see  how  you  keep 
your  promise.  If  you  don't,  that's  the  end  of 
Christmas  in  this  house." 

Jim:  "It's  a  bargain,  then!    Come  on,  Susy!" 

Susy:  "And  we  do  it  for  you,  mother.  And  for 
you,  father.  We  just  came  in  for  fun,  anyway." 

Jim:  "We  just  came  for  a  surprise." 
339 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Mrs.  Fountain,  kissing  them  both:  "Well,  then, 
if  it  was  only  for  fun,  we'll  excuse  you  this  time. 
Run  along,  now,  that's  good  children.  Clarence!" 


MRS.    FOUNTAIN,    FOUNTAIN 

Fountain:  "Well?"  He  looks  up  at  her  from 
where  he  has  dropped  into  a  chair  beside  the  table 
strewn  with  opened  and  unopened  gifts  at  the  foot 
of  the  Christmas  tree. 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "  What  are  you  mooning 
about?" 

Fountain:  "What  if  it  was  all  a  fake?  Those 
thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  churches 
that  pierce  the  clouds  with  their  spires;  those 
millions  of  ministers  and  missionaries;  those 
billions  of  worshipers,  sitting  and  standing  and 
kneeling,  and  singing  and  praying;  those  nuns 
and  monks,  and  brotherhoods  and  sisterhoods, 
with  their  ideals  of  self-denial,  and  their  duties 
to  the  sick  and  poor;  those  martyrs  that  died  for 
the  one  true  faith,  and  those  other  martyrs  of  the 
other  true  faiths  whom  the  one  true  faith  tortured 
and  killed;  those  masses  and  sermons  and  cere 
monies,  what  if  they  were  all  a  delusion,  a  mis 
take,  a  misunderstanding?  What  if  it  were  all 
as  unlike  the  real  thing,  if  there  is  any  real  thing, 

34° 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

as  this  pagan  Christmas  of  ours  is  as  unlike  a 
Christian  Christmas?" 

Mrs.  Fountain,  springing  up:  "I  knew  it!  I 
knew  that  it  was  this  Christmas  giving  that  was 
making  you  morbid  again.  Can't  you  shake  it 
off  and  be  cheerful — like  me?  I'm  sure  I  have  to 
bear  twice  as  much  of  it  as  you  have.  I've  been 
shopping  the  whole  week,  and  you've  been  just 
this  one  afternoon."  She  begins  to  catch  her 
breath,  and  fails  in  searching  for  her  handkerchief 
in  the  folds  of  her  dress  under  the  bath-robe. 

Fountain,  offering  his  handkerchief:  "Take 
mine." 

Mrs.  Fountain,  catching  it  from  him,  and  hiding 
her  face  in  it  on  the  table:  "You  ought  to  help 
me  bear  up,  and  instead  of  that  you  fling  yourself 
on  my  sympathies  and  break  me  down."  Lift 
ing  her  face:  "And  if  it  was  all  a  fake,  as  you  say, 
and  an  illusion,  what  would  you  do,  what  would 
you  give  people  in  place  of  it?" 

Fountain:  "I  don't  know." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "What  would  you  have  in 
place  of  Christmas  itself?" 

Fountain:  "I  don't  know." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Well,  then,  I  wouldn't  set 
myself  up  to  preach  down  everything — in  a  blue 
bath-gown.  You've  no  idea  how  ridiculous  you 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Fountain:  "Oh,  yes,  I  have.  I  can  see  you. 
You  look  like  one  of  those  blue  nuns  in  Rome. 
But  I  don't  remember  any  lace  on  them." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Well,  you  don't  look  like  a  blue 
monk,  you  needn't  flatter  yourself,  for  there  are 
none.  You  look  like —  What  are  you  thinking 
about?" 

Fountain:  "Oh,  nothing.  What  do  you  sup 
pose  is  in  all  these  packages  here  ?  Useful  things, 
that  we  need,  that  we  must  have?  You  know 
without  looking  that  it's  the  superfluity  of  naughti 
ness  in  one  form  or  other.  And  the  givers  of 
these  gifts,  they  had  to  give  them,  just  as  we've 
had  to  give  dozens  of  gifts  ourselves.  We  ought 
to  have  put  on  our  cards,  'With  the  season's  bit 
terest  grudges,'  'In  hopes  of  a  return,'  'With 
a  hopeless  sense  of  the  folly,'  'To  pay  a  hateful 
debt,'  'With  impotent  rage  and  despair.'" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "I  don't  deny  it,  Clarence. 
You're  perfectly  right;  I  almost  wish  we  had  put 
it.  How  it  would  have  made  them  hop!  But 
they'd  have  known  it  was  just  the  way  they  felt 
themselves." 

Fountain,  going  on  thoughtfully:  "It's  the  cap- 
sheaf  of  the  social  barbarism  we  live  in,  the  hideous 
hypocrisy.  It's  no  use  to  put  it  on  religion.  The 
Jews  keep  Christmas,  too,  and  we  know  what  they 
think  of  Christianity  as  a  belief.  No,  we've  got 

342 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

to  go  further  back,  to  the  Pagan  Saturnalia — 
Well,  I  renounce  the  whole  affair,  here  and  now. 
I'm  going  to  spend  the  rest  of  the  night  bundling 
these  things  up,  and  to-morrow  I'm  going  to  spend 
the  day  in  a  taxi,  going  round  and  giving  them 
back  to  the  fools  that  sent  them." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "And  I'm  going  with  you.  I 
hate  it  as  much  as  you  do —  Come  in,  Maggie!" 

XI 
MAGGIE,   MRS.   FOUNTAIN,   FOUNTAIN 

Maggie:  "Something  the  elevator-boy  says  he 
forgot.  It  came  along  with  the  last  one." 

Mrs.  Fountain,  taking  a  bundle  from  her:  "If 
this  is  another  bath-robe,  Clarence!  It  is,  as  I 
live.  Now  if  it  is  a  woman  sending  it — "  She 
picks  up  a  card  which  falls  out  of  the  robe  as  she 
unfolds  it.  "'Love  the  Giver,'  indeed!  Now, 
Clarence,  I  insist,  I  demand — •" 

Fountain:  "Hold  on,  hold  on,  my  dear.  The 
last  bath-robe  that  came  from  a  woman  was  for 
you.'1 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "So  it  was.  I  don't  know  what 
I  was  thinking  about;  and  I  do  beg  your  par — 
But  this  is  a  man's  bath-robe!" 

Fountain,  taking  the  card  which  she  mechani 
cally  stretches  out  to  him :  "And  a  man  sends  it — 

343 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

old  Fellows.  Can't  you  read  print?  Ambrose 
J.  Fellows,  and  a  message  in  writing:  'It  was  a 
toss-up  between  this  and  a  cigar-case,  and  the 
bath-robe  won.  Hope  you  haven't  got  any  other 
thoughtful  friends.'" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  ''Oh,  very  brilliant,  giving  me 
a  start  like  this!  I  shall  let  Mr.  Fellows  know — 
What  is  it,  Maggie?  Open  the  door,  please." 

Maggie,  opening:  "It's  just  a  District  Mes 
senger." 

Fountain,  ironically:  "Oh,  only  a  District  Mes 
senger."  He  signs  the  messenger's  slip,  while  his 
wife  receives  from  Maggie  a  bundle  which  she  re 
gards  with  suspicion. 

XII 

MRS.    FOUNTAIN,    FOUNTAIN 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "'From  Uncle  Philip  for  Clar 
ence/  Well,  Uncle  Philip,  if  you  have  sent 
Clarence —  Clarence!"  breaking  into  a  whimper: 
"It  is,  it  is!  It's  another." 

Fountain:  "Well,  that  only  makes  the  seventh, 
and  just  enough  for  every  day  in  the  week.  It's 
quite  my  ideal.  Now,  if  there's  nothing  about  a 
cigar-case —  Hello!"  He  feels  in  the  pocket  of 
the  robe  and  brings  out  a  cigar-case,  from  which 
a  slip  of  paper  falls :  " '  Couldn't  make  up  my  mind 

344 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

between  them,  so  send  both.  Uncle  Phil.'  Well, 
this  is  the  last  stroke  of  Christmas  insanity." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "His  brain  simply  reeled  under 
it,  and  gave  way.  It  shows  what  Christmas  really 
conies  to  with  a  man  of  strong  intellect  like  Uncle 
Phil." 

Fountain,  opening  the  case:  "Oh,  I  don't  know! 
He's  put  some  cigars  in  here — in  a  lucid  interval, 
probably.  There's  hope  yet." 

Mrs.  Fountain,  in  despair:  "No,  Clarence, 
there's  no  hope.  Don't  flatter  yourself.  The 
only  way  is  to  bundle  back  all  their  presents  and 
never,  never,  never  give  or  receive  another  one. 
Come!  Let's  begin  tying  them  up  at  once;  it 
will  take  us  the  rest  of  the  night."  A  knock  at 
the  door.  "Come,  Maggie." 

XIII 
JIM   AND   SUSY,    MRS.    FOUNTAIN,    FOUNTAIN 

Jim  and  Susy,  pushing  in:  "We  can't  sleep, 
mother.  May  we  have  a  pillow  fight  to  keep  us 
amused  till  we're  drowsy?" 

Mrs.  Fountain,  desolately:  "Yes,  go  and  have 
your  pillow  fight.  It  doesn't  matter  now.  We're 
sending  the  presents  all  back,  anyway."  She  be 
gins  frantically  wrapping  some  of  the  things  up. 

Susy:  "Oh,  father,  are  you  sending  them  back?" 
345 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Jim:  "She's  just  making  believe.  Isn't  she, 
father?" 

Fountain:  "Well,  I'm  not  so  sure  of  that.  If 
she  doesn't  do  it,  I  will." 

Mrs.  Fountain ,  desisting:  "Will  you  go  right 
back  to  bed?" 

Jim  and  Susy:  "Yes,  we  will." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "And  to  sleep,  instantly?" 

Jim  and  Susy,  in  succession:  "We  won't  keep 
awake  a  minute  longer." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Very  well,  then,  we'll  see. 
Now  be  off  with  you."  As  they  put  their  heads 
together  and  go  out  laughing:  "And  remember, 
if  you  come  here  another  single  time,  back  go 
every  one  of  the  presents." 

Fountain:  "As  soon  as  ever  Santa  Glaus  can 
find  a  moment  for  it." 

Jim,  derisively:  "Oh,  yes,  Santa  Glaus!" 

Susy:  "I  guess  if  you  wait  for  Santa  Glaus  to 
take  them  back!" 

XIV 
MRS.    FOUNTAIN,   FOUNTAIN 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Tiresome  little  wretches.  Of 
course  we  can't  expect  them  to  keep  up  the  self- 
deception." 

Fountain:  "They'll  grow  to  another.  When 
they're  men  and  women  they'll  pretend  that 

346 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Christmas  is  delightful,  and  go  round  giving  peo 
ple  the  presents  that  they've  worn  their  lives  out 
in  buying  and  getting  together.  And  they'll  work 
themselves  up  into  the  notion  that  they  are  really 
enjoying  it,  when  they  know  at  the  bottom  of 
their  souls  that  they  loathe  the  whole  job." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  " There  you  are  with  your 
pessimism  again!  And  I  had  just  begun  to  feel 
cheerful  about  it!" 

Fountain :  ' '  Since  when  ?  Since  I  proposed  send 
ing  this  rubbish  back  to  the  givers  with  our  curse?" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "No,  I  was  thinking  what  fun 
it  would  be  if  we  could  get  up  a  sort  of  Christmas 
game,  and  do  it  just  among  relations  and  intimate 
friends." 

Fountain:  "Ah,  I  wish  you  luck  of  it.  Then 
the  thing  would  begin  to  have  some  reality,  and 
just  as  in  proportion  as  people  had  the  worst  feel 
ings  in  giving  the  presents,  their  best  feeling  would 
be  hurt  in  getting  them  back." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Then  why  did  you  ever  think 
of  it?" 

Fountain:  "To  keep  from  going  mad.  Come, 
let's  go  on  with  this  job  of  sorting  the  presents, 
and  putting  them  in  the  stockings  and  hanging 
them  up  on  the  tree  and  laying  them  round  the 
trunk  of  it.  One  thing :  it's  for  the  last  time.  As 
soon  as  Christmas  week  is  over,  I  shall  inaugurate 

347 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

an  educational  campaign  against  the  whole  Christ 
mas  superstition.  It  must  be  extirpated  root  and 
branch,  and  the  extirpation  must  begin  in  the 
minds  of  the  children;  we  old  fools  are  hopeless; 
we  must  die  in  it;  but  the  children  can  be 
saved.  We  must  organize  and  make  a  house-to- 
house  fight;  and  I'll  begin  in  our  own  house. 
To-morrow,  as  soon  as  the  children  have  made 
themselves  thoroughly  sick  with  candy  and  cake 
and  midday  dinner,  I  will  appeal  to  their  reason, 
and  get  them  to  agree  to  drop  it ;  to  sign  the  Anti- 
Christmas  pledge;  to — " 

Mrs.  Fountain:  ''Clarence!     I  have  an  idea." 

Fountain:  "Not  a  bright  one?" 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Yes,  a  bright  one,  even  if 
you  didn't  originate  it.  Have  Christmas  con 
fined  entirely  to  children — to  the  very  young 
est —  to  children  that  believe  firmly  in  Santa 
Claus." 

Fountain:  "Oh,  hello!  Wouldn't  that  leave 
Jim  and  Susy  out?  I  couldn't  have  them  left 
out." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "That's  true.  I  didn't  think  of 
that.  Well,  say,  to  children  that  either  believe 
or  pretend  to  believe  in  him.  What's  that?'1  She 
stops  at  a  faint,  soft  sound  on  the  door.  "It's 
Maggie  with  her  hands  so  full  she's  pushing  with 
her  elbow.  Come  in,  Maggie,  come  in.  Come 

348 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

in!  Don't  you  hear  me?  Come  in,  I  say!  Oh, 
it  isn't  Maggie,  of  course!  It's  those  worthless, 
worthless  little  wretches,  again."  She  runs  to  the 
door  calling  out,  "Naughty,  naughty,  naughty!" 
as  she  runs.  Then,  flinging  the  door  wide,  with 
a  final  cry  of  "Naughty,  I  say!"  she  discovers  a 
small  figure  on  the  threshold,  nightgowned  to  its 
feet,  and  looking  up  with  a  frightened,  wistful 
face.  "Why,  Benny!"  She  stoops  down  and 
catches  the  child  in  her  arms,  and  presses  him 
tight  to  her  neck,  and  bends  over,  covering  his 
head  with  kisses.  "What  in  the  world  are  you 
doing  here,  you  poor  little  lamb?  Is  mother's 
darling  walking  in  his  sleep?  What  did  you 
want,  my  pet?  Tell  mudda,  do!  Whisper  it  in 
mudda's  big  ear !  Can't  you  tell  mudda?  What? 
Whisper  a  little  louder,  love!  We're  not  angry 
with  you,  sweetness.  Now,  try  to  speak  louder. 
Is  that  Santa  Claus?  No,  dearest,  that's  just 
dadda.  Santa  Claus  hasn't  come  yet,  but  he  will 
soon.  What  ?  Say  it  again.  Is  there  any  Santa 
Claus?  Why,  who  else  could  have  brought  all 
these  presents?  Presents  for  Benny  and  Jim  and 
Susy  and  mudda,  and  seven  bath-gowns  for  dadda. 
Isn't  that  funny?  Seven!  And  one  for  mudda. 
What?  I  can't  quite  hear  you,  pet.  Are  we 
going  to  send  the  presents  back?  Why,  who  ever 
heard  of  such  a  thing?  Jim  said  so?  And  Susy? 

349 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

Well,  I  will  settle  with  them,  when  I  come  to 
them.  You  don't  want  me  to?  Well,  I  won't, 
then,  if  Benny  doesn't  want  mudda  to.  I'll  just 
give  them  a  kiss  apiece,  pop  in  their  big  ears. 
What?  You've  got  something  for  Santa  Claus 
to  give  them?  What?  Where?  In  your  crib? 
And  shall  we  go  and  get  it?  For  mudda  too? 
And  dadda?  Oh,  my  little  angel!"  She  begins 
to  cry  over  him,  and  to  kiss  him  again.  "You'll 
break  my  heart  with  your  loveliness.  He  wants 
to  kiss  you  too,  dadda."  She  puts  the  boy  into 
his  father's  arms;  then  catches  him  back  and 
runs  from  the  room  with  him.  Fountain  resumes 
the  work  of  filling  the  long  stocking  he  had  be 
gun  with;  then  he  takes  up  a  very  short  sock. 
He  has  that  in  his  hand  when  Mrs.  Fountain  comes 
back,  wiping  her  eyes.  "He'll  go  to  sleep  now,  I 
guess;  he  was  half  dreaming  when  he  came  in 
here.  I  should  think,  when  you  saw  how  Benny 
believed  in  it,  you'd  be  ashamed  of  saying  a 
word  against  Christmas." 

Fountain:  "Who's  said  anything  against  it? 
I've  just  been  arguing  for  it,  and  trying  to  con 
vince  you  that  for  the  sake  of  little  children  like 
Benny  it  ought  to  be  perpetuated  to  the  end  of 
the  world.  It  began  with  the  childhood  of  the 
race,  in  the  rejuvenescence  of  the  spirit." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "Didn't  you  say  that  Christ- 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

mas  began  with  the  pagans?  How  monstrously 
you  prevaricate!'* 

Fountain:  "That  was  merely  a  figure  of  speech. 
And  besides,  since  you've  been  out  with  Benny, 
I've  been  thinking,  and  I  take  back  everything  I've 
said  or  thought  against  Christmas ;  I  didn't  really 
think  it.  I've  been  going  back  in  my  mind  to 
that  first  Christmas  we  had  together,  and  it's 
cheered  me  up  wonderfully." 

Mrs.  Fountain,  tenderly:  "Have  you,  dearest? 
I  always  think  of  it.  If  you  could  have  seen 
Benny,  how  I  left  him,  just  now?" 

Fountain:  "I  shouldn't  mind  seeing  him,  and 
I  shouldn't  care  if  I  gave  a  glance  at  poor  old 
Jim  and  Susy.  I'd  like  to  reassure  them  about 
not  sending  back  the  presents."  He  puts  his  arm 
round  her  and  presses  her  toward  the  door. 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "How  sweet  you  are!  And 
how  funny!  And  good!"  She  accentuates  each 
sentiment  with  a  kiss.  "And  don't  you  suppose 
I  felt  sorry  for  you,  making  you  go  round  with  me 
the  whole  afternoon,  and  then  leaving  you  to 
take  the  brunt  of  arranging  the  presents?  Now 
I'll  tell  you:  next  year,  I  will  do  my  Christmas 
shopping  in  July.  It's  the  only  way." 

Fountain:  "No,  there's  a  better  way.  As  you 
were  saying,  they  don't  have  the  Christmas  things 
out.  The  only  way  is  to  do  our  Christmas  shop- 

351 


THE  NIGHT  BEFORE  CHRISTMAS 

ping  the  day  after  Christmas;  everything  will  be 

round  still,  and    dog-cheap.     Come,  we'll  begin 

day  after  to-morrow." 

Mrs.  Fountain:  "We  will,  we  will!" 

Fountain:  "Do  you  think  we  will?" 

Mrs.    Fountain:    "Well,    we'll   say   we    will." 

They  laugh  together,  and  then  he  kisses  her. 
Fountain:  "Even  if  it  goes  on  in  the  same  old 

way,  as  long  as  we  have  each  other — " 
Mrs.  Fountain:  "And  the  children." 
Fountain.  "I  forgot  the  children!" 
Mrs.  Fountain:  "Oh,  how  delightful  you  are!" 


THE    END 


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JUN    24  1987 


_ 


1 


MAY    41966 


'IN  STACKS 


APR  20  £8 


•t  •? 


I  9 


LD  21-100m-8,'34 


B859 

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333929 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


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